My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed For, as in sunshine only we can read The march of minutes on the dial's face, With aching hands and lingering of eyes. By the same light of love that makes them bright! VI. FOR THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY. No popular respect will I omit To do thee honour on this happy day, VII. TO A SLEEPING CHILD. I. OH, 'tis a touching thing, to make one weep,- Breathing as it would neither live nor die So sweet a compromise of life and death, Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. VIII. TO A SLEEPING CHILD. II. THINE eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd No eyes could wake so beautiful as they : Thy graceful death,—till those blue eyes upbeam'd. And roses bloom more rosily for joy, And odorous silence ripens into sound, And fingers move to sound.—All-beauteous boy! IX. THE World is with me, and its many cares, Its woes —its wants—the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs The shades of former and of future years Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears, Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears, Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of date! But no—a laugh of innocence and joy Resounds, like music of the fairy race, And, gladly turning from the world's annoy, I gaze upon a little radiant face, And bless, internally, the merry boy Who "makes a son-shine in a shady place." |