Till her outstretched hands smiled | When I wake in the morning, I see it also, And I almost seemed to see The very heart of her mother Sending sun through her veins to me! Where she always used to lie, And I feel as weak as a violet Alone 'neath the awful sky. As weak, yet as trustful also; For the whole year long I see She had been with us scarce a twelve- All the wonders of faithful Nature month, And it hardly seemed a day, When a troop of wandering angels Stole my little daughter away; Or perhaps those heavenly Zingari But loosed the hampering strings, And when they had opened her cagedoor, My little bird used her wings. But they left in her stead a changeling, A little angel child, Still worked for the love of me; Winds wander, and dews drip earthward, Rain falls, suns rise and set. Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet. This child is not mine as the first was, I cannot sing it to rest, I cannot lift it up fatherly And bliss it upon my breast; Yet it lies in my little one's cradle And sits in my little one's chair, That seems like her bud in full blos- And the light of the heaven she's While loitering frosts about the low- O Youth unprescient, were it only so I WOULD more natures were like thine, | And thou, to lull thine infant rest, That never casts a glance before, Thou Hebe, who thy heart's bright wine So lavishly to all dost pour, That we who drink forget to pine, And can but dream of bliss in store. Thou canst not see a shade in life; With sunward instinct thou dost rise, And, leaving clouds below at strife, Gazest undazzled at the skies, With all their blazing splendors rife, A songful lark with eagle's eyes. Thou wast some foundling whom the Wast cradled like an Indian child; All pleasant winds from south and west With lullabies thine ears beguiled, Rocking thee in thine oriole's nest, Till Nature looked at thee and smiled. Nursed, laughing, with the milk of I would more natures were like thine, Mirth; Some influence more gay than ours So innocently wild and free, shine, Like sunny wavelets in the sea, Making us mindless of the brine, In gazing on the brilliancy. |
