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And when the awful stranger Evil bends
His eye upon thee, thou wilt first essay
To turn him from his dark pursuits and ends
By gracious dalliance and familiar play:

As well might kindly words arrest the roll
Of billows raging o'er a wintry sea :—
O Providence! remit to this one soul
Its destined years, and take it back to Thee.

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The life of song, and breezes, and free wings,

Is all the murmuring shade! and thine, O thine!
Of all the brightest and the happiest here,
My blessed child! my gift of God! that makest
My heart o'erflow with summer!”

TO A FRIEND

Who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my Infant

to me.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scann'd that face of feeble infancy:

For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my babe might be!
But when I saw it on its mother's arm,
And hanging at her bosom, (she the while
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile,)
Then I was thrilled and melted, and most warm
Impress'd a father's kiss: and all beguiled
Of dark remembrance, and presageful fear,
I seemed to see an angel's form appear—
'T was even thine, beloved woman mild !
So for the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.

TO MY GODCHILD ON THE DAY OF HIS BAPTISM.

RICHARD CHEVENIX FRENCH,

CURATE OF CURDRIDGE CHAPEL.

No harsh transitions nature knows,
No dreary spaces intervene ;
Her work in silence forward goes,
And rather felt than seen.

For where the watcher, that with eye
Turned eastward, yet could ever say
When the faint glooming in the sky
First lightened into day?

Or maiden by an opening flower,

That many a summer morn has stood,
Could fix upon the very hour

It ceased to be a bud?

The rainbow colours mix and blend
Each with the other, until none

Can tell where fainter hues had end,

And deeper tints begun.

But only doth this much appear,
That the pale hues are deeper grown ;
The day has broken bright and clear,
The bud is fully blown.

Dear child, and happy shalt thou be
If from this hour, with just increase,
All good things shall grow up in thee,
By such unmarked degrees.

If there shall be no dreary space
Between thy present self and past,

No dreary miserable place,
With spectral shapes aghast.

But the full graces of thy prime
Shall in their weak beginnings, be
Lost in an unremembered time
Of holy infancy.

This blessing is the first and best;

Yet has not prayer been made in vain For them, though not so amply blest, The lost and found again.

And shouldest thou, alas! forbear
To choose the better, nobler lot,
Yet may we not esteem our prayer
Unheard or heeded not.

If after many a wandering,

And many a devious pathway trod,
If having known that bitter thing,
To leave the Lord thy God,

It yet shall be, that thou at last,
Although thy noon be lost, return

To bind life's eye in union fast
To this, its blessed morn.

ON OUR FIRST SON.

BEN JONSON.

FAREWELL! thou child of my right hand and joy,
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
Seven years were lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate on the just day.

O, could I lose all father, now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
And if no other misery, yet age-

Rest in soft peace! and, asked, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poesy.

For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much.

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