The wilder flowers, and gives them names;

But only with the roses plays,

And them does tell

What color best becomes them, and what smell.

Who can foretell for what high cause
This darling of the gods was born?
Yet this is she whose chaster laws
The wanton Love shall one day fear,
And, under her command severe,
See his bow broke, and ensigns torn.
Happy who can

Appease this virtuous enemy of man!

O then let me in time compound
And parley with those conquering eyes,
Ere they have tried their force to wound,
Ere with their glancing wheels they drive
In triumph over hearts that strive,
And them that yield but more despise:
Let me be laid

Where I may see the glories from some shade.

Meantime, whilst every verdant thing
Itself does at thy beauty charm,
Reform the errors of the Spring;
Make that the tulips may have share
Of sweetness, seeing they are fair,
And roses of their thorns disarm;
But most procure

That violets may a longer age endure.

But O young beauty of the woods,

Whom Nature courts with fruits and flowers,
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds;

Lest Flora, angry at thy crime

To kill her infants in their prime,

Do quickly make the example yours;

And, ere we see,

Nip, in the blossom, all our hopes and thee.

Andrew Marvell [1621-1678]

To Hartley Coleridge

263

TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE

SIX YEARS OLD

O THOU! whose fancies from afar are brought:
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought

The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou fairy voyager! that dost float

In such clear water, that thy boat

May rather seem

To brood on air than on an earthly stream;

Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,

Where earth and heaven do make one imagery:

O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou art so exquisitely wild,

I think of thee with many fears

For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality;

And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest

But when she sate within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy!

Nature will either end thee quite;

Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,

Preserve for thee, by individual right,

A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,

Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,

Ill-fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,

Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;

A gem that glitters while it lives,

And no forewarning gives;

But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife,

Slips in a moment out of life.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

TO A CHILD OF QUALITY

FIVE YEARS OLD, 1704, THE AUTHOR THEN FORTY

LORDS, knights, and squires, the numerous band
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summoned by her high command
To show their passions by their letters.

My pen amongst the rest I took,

Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read, Should dart their kindling fires, and look The power they have to be obeyed.

Nor quality, nor reputation,

Forbids me yet my flame to tell;
Dear Five-years-old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For, while she makes her silkworms' beds
With all the tender things I swear;
Whilst all the house my passion reads,
In papers round her baby's hair;

She may receive and own my flame;

For, though the strictest prudes should know it, She'll pass for a most virtuous dame, And I for an unhappy poet.

Then too, alas! when she shall tear

The rhymes some younger rival sends,

She'll give me leave to write, I fear,

And we shall still continue friends.

For, as our different ages move,

'Tis so ordained (would Fate but mend it!),

That I shall be past making love

When she begins to comprehend it.

Matthew Prior [1664-1721]

The Child's Heritage

265

THE CHILD'S HERITAGE

OH, there are those, a sordid clan,
With pride in gaud and faith in gold,
Who prize the sacred soul of man

For what his hands have sold.

And these shall deem thee humbly bred:
They shall not hear, they shall not see
The kings among the lordly dead

Who walk and talk with thee!

A tattered cloak may be thy dole,
And thine the roof that Jesus had:
The broidered garment of the soul
Shall keep thee purple-clad!

The blood of men hath dyed its brede,
And it was wrought by holy seers
With sombre dream and golden deed,
And pearled with women's tears.

With Eld thy chain of days is one:
The seas are still Homeric seas;
Thy skies shall glow with Pindar's sun,
The stars of Socrates!

Unaged the ancient tide shall surge,

The old Spring burn along the bough:
For thee, the new and old converge
In one eternal Now!

I give thy feet the hopeful sod,

Thy mouth, the priceless boon of breath; The glory of the search for God

Be thine in life and death!

Unto thy flesh, the soothing dust;
Thy soul, the gift of being free:
The torch my fathers gave in trust,
Thy father gives to thee!

John G. Neikardt

A GIRL OF POMPEII

A PUBLIC haunt they found her in:
She lay asleep, a lovely child;
The only thing left undefiled
Where all things else bore taint of sin.

Her supple outlines fixed in clay
The universal law suspend,

And turn Time's chariot back, and blend
A thousand years with yesterday.

A sinless touch, austere yet warm,
Around her girlish figure pressed,

Caught the sweet imprint of her breast,
And held her, surely clasped, from harm.

Truer than work of sculptor's art
Comes this dear maid of long ago,
Sheltered from woeful chance, to show

A spirit's lovely counterpart,

And bid mistrustful men be sure

That form shall fate of flesh escape,

And, quit of earth's corruptions, shape

Itself, imperishably pure.

Edward Sandford Martin [1856

ON THE PICTURE OF A "CHILD TIRED

OF PLAY"

TIRED of play! Tired of play!

What hast thou done this live-long day!

The bird is silent and so is the bee,

The shadow is creeping up steeple and tree;
The doves have flown to the sheltering eaves,

And the nests are dark with the drooping leaves;

Twilight gathers, and day is done,—

How hast thou spent it, restless one?

Playing! And what hast thou done beside

To tell thy mother at eventide?