TO A CHILD.

DEAR child! how radiant on thy mother's knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles,

Whose figures grace,

With many a grotesque form and face,

The ancient chimney of thy nursery!

The lady with the gay macaw,

The dancing girl, the grave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin ;

And leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command
Thou shakest in thy little hand

The coral rattle with its silver bells,
Making a merry tune!

Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon

Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!
Those silver bells

Reposed of yore,

As shapeless ore,

Far down in the deep-sunken wells

Of darksome mines,

In some obscure and sunless place,
Beneath huge Chimborazo's base,
Or steep Potosi's mountain pines !
And thus for thee, O little child,
Through many a danger and escape,
The tall ships passed the stormy cape;
For thee in foreign lands remote,
Beneath a burning, tropic clime,

The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,
Himself as swift and wild,

In falling, clutched the frail arbute,
The fibres of whose shallow root,
Uplifted from the soil, betrayed

The silver veins beneath it laid,

The buried treasures of the miser, Time.

But, lo, thy door is left ajar!

Thou hearest footsteps from afar !

And, at the sound,

Thou turnest round

With quick and questioning eyes,

Like one, who, in a foreign land,

Beholds on every hand

Some source of wonder and surprise!

And, restlessly, impatiently,

Thou strivest, strugglest to be free.

The four walls of thy nursery

Are now like prison-walls to thee.

No more thy mother's smiles,

No more the painted tiles,

Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, That won thy little beating heart before;

Thou strugglest for the open door.

Through these once solitary halls
Thy pattering footstep falls.

The sound of thy merry voice
Makes the old walls

Jubilant, and they rejoice

With the joy of thy young heart,

O'er the light of whose gladness

No shadows of sadness

From the sombre background of memory start.

Once, ah, once, within these walls,

One whom memory oft recalls,
The Father of his Country, dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp
The fires of the besieging camp
Encircled with a burning belt.
Up and down these echoing stairs,
Heavy with the weight of cares,
Sounded his majestic tread;
Yes, within this very room
Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head.

But what are these grave thoughts to thee?

Out, out, into the open air!

Thy only dream is liberty,

Thou carest little how or where.

I see thee eager at thy play,

Now shouting to the apples on the tree,
With cheeks as round and red as they;
And now among the yellow stalks,
Among the flowering shrubs and plants,
As restless as the bee.

Along the garden-walks,

The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace; And see at every turn how they efface

Whole villages of sand-roofed tents,

That rise like golden domes

Above the cavernous and secret homes

Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants.
Ah, cruel little Tamerlane,

Who, with thy dreadful reign,

Dost persecute and overwhelm

These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm!

What! tired already! with those suppliant looks,
And voice more beautiful than a poet's books,
Or murmuring sound of water as it flows,
Thou comest back to parley with repose!
This rustic seat in the old apple-tree,
With its o'erhanging golden canopy

Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues,
And shining with the argent light of dews,
Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest,
From which the laughing birds have taken wing,
By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam ;

A sailless vessel drops adown the stream,
And like it, to a sea as wide and deep,
Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.

O child! O new-born denizen

Of life's great city! on thy head
The glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison !

Here at the portal thou dost stand,

And with thy little hand

Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand,

As at the touch of Fate!

Into those realms of love and hate,
Into that darkness blank and drear,
By some prophetic feeling taught,
I launch the bold, adventurous thought,
Freighted with hope and fear;

As upon subterranean streams,
In caverns unexplored and dark,
Men sometimes launch a fragile bark,