POEMS REFERRING TO THE PERIOD
My heart leaps up when I behold
A Rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
TO A BUTTERFLY.
STAY near me-do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the Butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey-with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her! feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
BEHOLD, within the leafy shade,
Those bright blue eggs together laid!
On me the chance-discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of delight.-
I started-seeming to espy
The home and sheltered bed,-
The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by
My father's house, in wet or dry,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together visited.
She looked at it as if she feared it;
Still wishing, dreading to be near it:
Such heart was in her, being then
A little prattler among men.
The blessing of my later years
Was with me when a boy:
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares, and delicate fears,
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears,
And love, and thought, and joy.
OR THE CHARGE OF A CHILD TO HIS YOUNGER COMPANION.
THAT is work of waste and ruin-
Do as Charles and I are doing!
Strawberry-blossoms, one and all,
We must spare them-here are many:
Look at it, the flower is small,
Small and low, though fair as any:
Do not touch it! summers two
I am older, Anne, than you.
Pull the primrose, sister Anne!
Pull as many as you can.
-Here are daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower:
Of the lofty daffodil
Make your bed, and make your bower;
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom;
Only spare the Strawberry-blossom.
Primroses, the Spring may love them-
Summer knows but little of them;
Violets, a barren kind,
Withered on the ground must lie;
Daisies leave no fruit behind
When the pretty flow'rets die;
Pluck them, and another year
As many will be blowing here.
God has given a kindlier power
To the favoured Strawberry-flower.
When the months of Spring are fled
Hither let us bend our walk;
Lurking berries, ripe and red,
Then will hang on every stalk,
Each within its leafy bower;
And for that promise spare the flower!
CHARACTERISTICS OF A CHILD THREE YEARS OLD.
LOVING she is, and tractable, though wild;
And innocence hath privilege in her
To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes;
And feats of cunning; and the pretty round
Of trespasses, affected to provoke
Mock chastisement and partnership in play.
And, as a faggot sparkles on the hearth,
Not less if unattended and alone
Than when both young and old sit gathered round
And take delight in its activity,
Even so this happy creature of herself
Is all-sufficient: solitude to her
Is blithe society, who fills the air
With gladness and involuntary songs.
Light are her sallies as the tripping fawn's
Forth-startled from the fern where she lay couched;
Unthought-of, unexpected as the stir
Of the soft breeze ruffling the meadow flowers;
Or from before it chasing wantonly
The many-coloured images impressed
Upon the bosom of a placid lake.
ADDRESS TO A CHILD, DURING A BOISTEROUS WIN. TER EVENING.
BY A FEMALE FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.
WHAT way does the wind come? What way does he go?
He rides over the water, and over the snow,
Through wood, and through vale: and o'er rocky height
Which the goat cannot climb,.takes his sounding flight.
He tosses about in every bare tree,
As, if you look up, you plainly may see:
But how he will come, and whither he goes,
There's never a scholar in England knows.
He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook,
And ring a sharp larum;-but if you should look
There's nothing to see but a cushion of snow
Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
And softer than if it were covered with silk.
Sometimes he'll hide in the cave of a rock,
Then whistle as shrill as the buzzard cock;
-Yet seek him-and what shall you find in the place?
Nothing but silence and empty space,
Save, in a corner, a heap of dry leaves,
That he's left for a bed for beggars or thieves!
As soon as 'tis daylight, to-morrow, with me
You shall go the orchard, and then you will see
That he has been there, and made a great rout,
And cracked the branches, and strewn them about;
Heaven grant that he spare but that one upright twig
That looked up at the sky so proud and big
All last summer, as well you know,
Studded with apples, a beautiful show!
Hark! over the roof he makes a pause,
And growls as if he would fix his claws
Right in the slates, and with a huge rattle
Drive them down, like men in a battle:
-But let him range round; he does us no harm,
We build up the fire, we're sung and warm;
Untouch'd by his breath see the candle shines bright
And burns with a clear and steady light;
Books have we to read,-hush! that half-stifled knell, Methinks 'tis the sound of the eight o'clock bell.
-Come, now we'll to bed; and when we are there
He may work his own will, and what shall we care?
He may knock at the door,-we'll not let him in,
May drive at the windows,-we'll laugh at his din;
Let him seek his own home wherever it be:
Here's a cozie warm house for Edward and me.
A MONTH, Sweet little ones, is passed
Since your tender mother went away,-
And she to-morrow will return;
To-morrow is the happy day.
O blessed tidings! thought of joy!
The eldest heard with steady glee;
Silent he stood; then laughed amain,--
And shouted, "Mother, come to me!"
Louder and louder did he shout
With witless hope to bring her near;
"Nay, patience! patience, little boy!
Your tender mother cannot hear."
I told of hills, and far-off towns,
And long, long vales to travel through;-
He listens, puzzled, sore perplexed,
But he submits: what can he do?
No strife disturbs his sister's breast;
She wars not with the mystery
Of time and distance, night and day,
The bonds of our humanity.
Her joy is like an instinct, joy
Of kitten, bird, or summer fly;
She dances, runs without an aim,
She chatters in her ecstacy.
Her brother now takes up the note,
And echoes back his sister's glee;
They hug the infant in my arms,
As if to force his sympathy.
Then, settling into fond discourse,
We rested in the garden bower;
While sweetly shone the evening sun
In his departing hour.
We told o'er all that we had done,--
Our rambles by the swift brook's side
Far as the willow-skirted pool
Where two fair swans together glide.
We talked of change, of winter gone,
Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray,
Of birds that build their nests, and sing,
And "all since Mother went away!"
To her these tales they will repeat,
To her our new-born tribes will show,
The goslings green, the ass's colt,
The lambs that in the meadow go.
But, see, the evening star comes forth!
To bed the children must depart;
A moment's heaviness they feel,
A sadness at the heart.
'Tis gone-and in a merry fit
They run up stairs in gamesome race;
I too, infected by their mood,
I could have joined the wanton chase.
Five minutes past-and Oh the change!
Asleep upon their beds they lie;
Their busy limbs in perfect rest,
And closed the sparkling eye.
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