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I would that thou might'st ever be
As beautiful as now,

That time might ever leave as free
Thy yet unwritten brow.

I would life were all poetry
To gentle measure set,

That naught but chastened melody
Might stain thine eye of jet,

Nor one discordant note be spoken,
Till God the cunning harp hath broken.

I would--but deeper things than these
With woman's lot are wove:
Wrought of intensest sympathies,
And nerved by purest love;
By the strong spirit's discipline,
By the fierce wrong forgiven,
By all that wrings the heart of sin,
Is woman won to heaven.

"Her lot is on thee," lovely child—
God keep thy spirit undefiled!

I fear thy gentle loveliness,
Thy witching tone and air,
Thine eye's beseeching earnestness
May be to thee a snare.

The silver stars may purely shine,

The waters taintless flow:

But they who kneel at woman's shrine
Breathe on it as they bow.

Peace may fling back the gift again,

But the crushed flower will leave a stain.

What shall preserve thee, beautiful child?
Keep thee as thou art now?
Bring thee, a spirit undefiled,
At God's pure throne to bow?

The world is but a broken reed,

And life grows early dim-
Who shall be near thee in thy need,
To lead thee up to Him?

He who himself was "undefiled?"

With Him we trust thee, beautiful child! Nathaniel Parker Willis [1806-1867]

TO MY DAUGHTER

DEAR Fanny! nine long years ago,
While yet the morning sun was low,
And rosy with the eastern glow
The landscape smiled;

Whilst lowed the newly-wakened herds-
Sweet as the early song of birds,

I heard those first, delightful words,
"Thou hast a child!"

Along with that uprising dew

Tears glistened in my eyes, though few,

To hail a dawning quite as new

To me, as Time:

It was not sorrow-not annoy

But like a happy maid, though coy,
With grief-like welcome, even Joy
Forestalls its prime.

So may'st thou live, dear! many years,
In all the bliss that life endears,

Not without smiles, nor yet from tears

Too strictly kept.

When first thy infant littleness

I folded in my fond caress,

The greatest proof of happiness

Was this-I wept.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845]

The Picture of Little T. C.

TO CHARLOTTE PULTENEY

TIMELY blossom, Infant fair,
Fondling of a happy pair,
Every morn and every night
Their solicitous delight,
Sleeping, waking, still at case,
Pleasing, without skill to please;
Little gossip, blithe and hale,
Tattling many a broken tale,
Singing many a tuneless song,
Lavish of a heedless tongue;
Simple maiden, void of art,
Babbling out the very heart,
Yet abandoned to thy will,
Yet imagining no ill,

Yet too innocent to blush;
Like the linnet in the bush
To the mother-linnet's note
Moduling her slender throat;
Chirping forth thy pretty joys,
Wanton in the change of toys,
Like the linnet green, in May
Flitting to each bloomy spray;
Wearied then and glad of rest,
Like the linnet in the nest:-
This thy present happy lot,
This, in time will be forgot:
Other pleasures, other cares,
Ever-busy Time prepares;

And thou shalt in thy daughter see,

This picture, once, resembled thee.

261

Ambrose Philips [1675?-1749]

THE PICTURE OF LITTLE T. C. IN A
PROSPECT OF FLOWERS

SEE with what simplicity

This nymph begins her golden days!
In the green grass she loves to lie,
And there with her fair aspect tames

The wilder flowers, and gives them names;

But only with the roses plays,

And them does tell

What color best becomes them, and what smell.

Who can foretell for what high cause
This darling of the gods was born?
Yet this is she whose chaster laws
The wanton Love shall one day fear,
And, under her command severe,
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.
Happy who can

Appease this virtuous enemy of man!

O then let me in time compound
And parley with those conquering eyes,
Ere they have tried their force to wound,
Ere with their glancing wheels they drive
In triumph over hearts that strive,
And them that yield but more despise:
Let me be laid

Where I may see the glories from some shade.

Meantime, whilst every verdant thing
Itself does at thy beauty charm,

Reform the errors of the Spring;

Make that the tulips may have share
Of sweetness, seeing they are fair,
And roses of their thorns disarm;
But most procure

That violets may a longer age endure.

But O young beauty of the woods,

Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds;

Lest Flora, angry at thy crime

To kill her infants in their prime,

Do quickly make the example yours;

And, ere we see,

Nip, in the blossom, all our hopes and thee.

Andrew Marvell [1621-1678]

To Hartley Coleridge

263

TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE

SIX YEARS OLD

O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought:
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou fairy voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery:

O blessed vision! happy child!

Thou art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,

Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill-fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife,

Slips in a moment out of life.

William Wordsworth [1770-1850]

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