| |
| DEAR child! whom sleep can hardly tame, | |
| As live and beautiful as flame, | |
| Thou glancest round my graver hours | |
| As if thy crown of wild-wood flowers | |
| Were not by mortal forehead worn, | 5 |
| But on the summer breeze were borne, | |
| Or on a mountain streamlet’s waves | |
| Came glistening down from dreamy caves. | |
| |
| With bright round cheek, amid whose glow | |
| Delight and wonder come and go, | 10 |
| And eyes whose inward meanings play, | |
| Congenial with the light of day, | |
| And brow so calm, a home for Thought | |
| Before he knows his dwelling wrought; | |
| Though wise indeed thou seemest not, | 15 |
| Thou brightenest well the wise man’s lot. | |
| |
| That shout proclaims the undoubting mind, | |
| That laughter leaves no ache behind; | |
| And in thy look and dance of glee, | |
| Unforced, unthought of, simply free, | 20 |
| How weak the schoolman’s formal art | |
| Thy soul and body’s bliss to part! | |
| I hail thee Childhood’s very Lord, | |
| In gaze and glance, in voice and word. | |
| |
| In spite of all foreboding fear, | 25 |
| A thing thou art of present cheer; | |
| And thus to be belov’d and known | |
| As is a rushy fountain’s tone, | |
| As is the forest’s leafy shade, | |
| Or blackbird’s hidden serenade: | 30 |
| Thou art a flash that lights the whole; | |
| A gush from Nature’s vernal soul. | |
| |
| And yet, dear Child! within thee lives | |
| A power that deeper feeling gives, | |
| That makes thee more than light or air, | 35 |
| Than all things sweet and all things fair; | |
| And sweet and fair as aught may be, | |
| Diviner life belongs to thee, | |
| For ’mid thine aimless joys began | |
| The perfect Heart and Will of Man. | 40 |
| |
| Thus what thou art foreshows to me | |
| How greater far thou soon shalt be; | |
| And while amid thy garlands blow | |
| The winds that warbling come and go, | |
| Ever within not loud but clear | 45 |
| Prophetic murmur fills the ear, | |
| And says that every human birth | |
| Anew discloses God to earth. | |
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