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THE following Poems were, with scarcely an exception, addressed to individuals, or suggested by actual occurrences. They have, however, little or nothing of an occasional character certainly are never without a general interest.

CHILDHOOD.

Oh what a wilderness were this sad world
If man were always man, and never child;
If Nature gave no time, so sweetly wild,
When every thought is quaintly crisp'd and curl'd,
Like fragrant hyacinth with dew impearl'd,

And every feeling in itself confiding,

Yet never single, but continuous, gliding
With wavy motion as, on wings unfurl'd,

A seraph clips the Empyreal! Such man was
Ere sin had made him know himself too well.
No child was born ere that primeval loss.
What might have been, no living soul can tell :
But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess
Once in their life fair Eden's simpleness.

TO AN INFANT.

WISE is the way of Nature, first to make
This tiny model of what is to be,

A thing that we may love as soon as see,
That seems as passive as a summer lake
When there is not a sigh of wind to shake
The aspen leaf upon the tall slim tree.
Yet who can tell, sweet infant mystery,
What thoughts in thee may now begin to wake?
Something already dost thou know of pain,

And, sinless, bear'st the penalty of sin;

And yet as quickly wilt thou smile again
After thy cries, as vanishes the stain

Of breath from steel. So may the peace within
In thy ripe season re-assert its reign.

TO AN INFANT.

SURE 'tis a holy and a healing thought

That fills my heart and mind at sight of thee,
Thou purest abstract of humanity.

Sweet infant, we might deem thy smile was brought
From some far distant Paradise, where nought
Forbad to hope whate'er of good may be,

Where thou could'st know, and feel, and taste, and see That innocence which, lost, is vainly sought

In this poor world. Yet, if thou wert so good

As love conceives thee, thou had'st ne'er been born;

For sure the Lord of Justice never would

Have doom'd a loyal spirit to be shorn
Of its immortal glories-never could

Exile perfection to an earth forlorn.

VOL. II.

I

TO AN INFANT.

WRITTEN ON A SNOWY DAY.

SOME say, sweet babe, thy mind is but a blank,
As white and vacant as the level field

Of unsunn'd snow, that passively must yield
To human foot, to vapour dull and dank,
To wheel indenting slow, with sullen clank,
To wanton tracery of urchin wild.

I deem not so of any human child,

Nor can believe our nature ever sank

To such a lowness. Nay, my pretty boy!

In thy shrill laugh there is intelligence;

And though we can but guess, or how, or whence
Thy soul was wafted—from what realm of joy
Or mere privation thou hast hither come,-

Thought has come with thee, happy thought, though

dumb.

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