THE INFANT GRANDCHILD OF A BLIND GRANDFATHER.
OH sweet new-comer to the changeful earth!
If, as some darkling seers have boldly guess'd,
Thou hadst a being and a human birth,
And wert erewhile by human parents blest,
Long, long before thy present mother press'd
Thee, helpless stranger, to her fostering breast;
Then well it is for thee that thou canst not
Remember aught of face, or thing, or spot,
But all thy former life is clean forgot:
For sad it were to visit earth again,
And find it false, and turbulent, and vain;
So little better than it was of yore,
Yet nothing find that thou hast loved before;
And restless man in haste to banish thence
The very shadow of old reverence.
But well for us that there is something yet,
Which change cannot efface, nor time forget;-
The patient smile of passive babyhood;
The brook-like gurglings, murmuring after meaning;
The waking dream; the shade as softly screening
The innocent sweetness of the opening bud,
Which future love and sager thought encloses,
As dewy moss, that swathes the swelling roses,—
Till thought peers forth, and murmurs break to words,
With human import in the notes of birds.
And thus, sweet maid! thy voice, so blithe and clear,
Pours all the spring on thy good grandsire's ear,
Filling his kind heart with a new delight,
Which Homer may in ancient days have known,
Till love and joy create an inward sight,
And blindness shapes a fair world of its own.
Let mutability, then, work its will,
The child shall be the same sweet creature still.
THOU, Baby Innocence !—unseen of me,
New bursting leaflet of the eternal tree,
That thou art sweet, is all I know of thee.
I know thou must be innocent and fair,
And dimpled soft as other babies are;
But then-what impress doth thy beauty bear?
Which most prevails, the mother or the sire? Are thine eyes like thy father's-made of fire, Keen to discern, and dauntless to inquire?
Or, like thy mother's, meek as summer eve,
Gracious in answer, open to receive,
Types of a soul most potent to believe?
Is thy chin cleft as sunny side of peach?
And have thy lips their own peculiar speech,
And murmurs that can chide, caress, beseech?
Thy little hands are busy,-that I know;
Thy tiny feet are fidging to and fro;
But what's the inner mood that stirs them so?
Not knowing what thou art, I deem it meet
To think thee whatsoe'er I think most sweet,-
A bud of promise-yet a babe complete.
FAIN Would I dive to find my infant self
In the unfathom'd ocean of the past;
I can but find a sun-burnt prattling elf,
A froward urchin of four years at least.
The prettiest speech-'tis in my mind engrain'd-
That first awaked me from my babyhood,-
'Twas a grave saw affectionately feign'd—
We'll love you, little master,—if you 're good."
Sweet babe, thou art not yet or good or bad,
Yet God is round thee, in thee, and above thee; We love, because we love thee, little lad,
And pray thou may'st be good-because we love thee.
WHAT is an infant but a germ,
Prophetic of a distant term?
Whose present claim of love consists
In that great power that Nature twists
With the fine thread of imbecillity,
Motion of infinite tranquillity.
Joy that is not for this or that,
Nor like the restless joy of gnat,
Or midge in moty beam so rife,
Whose day of pleasure is its life;
But joy that by its quiet being
Is witness of a law foreseeing
All joy and sorrow that may hap
To the wee sleeper in the mother's lap.
Such joy, I ween, is ever creeping
On every nerve of baby sleeping;
But, baby waking, longest lingers
In tiny hand and tiny fingers,
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