INNOCENT child and snow-white flower!
Well are ye paired in your opening hour.
Thus should the pure and the lovely meet :
Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet.
White as those leaves, just blown apart,
Are the opening folds of thy own young heart;
Guilty passion and cankering care
Never have left their traces there.
Artless one! though thou gazest now
O'er the white blossom with earnest brow,
Soon will it tire thy childish eye;
Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by.
Throw it aside in thy weary hour,
Throw to the ground the fair white flower;
Yet, as thy tender years depart,
Keep that white and innocent heart.
BETWEEN the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower, Comes a pause in the day's occupations, That is known as the Children's Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall-stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence :
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall !
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape they surround me : They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-cyed banditti !
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old moustache as I am
Is not a match for you all ?
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you for ever,
Yes, for ever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
IN yonder cot, along whose mouldering walls
In many a fold the mantling woodbine falls,
The village matron kept her little school:
Gentle of heart, yet knowing well to rule.
Staid was the dame, and modest was her mien;
Her garb was coarse, yet whole, and nicely clean;
Her neatly border'd cap, as lily fair,
Beneath her chin was pinn'd with decent care;
And pendent ruffles, of the whitest lawn,
Of ancient make, her elbows did adorn.
Faint with old age, and dim, were grown her eyes:
A pair of spectacles their want supplies;
These does she guard secure, in leathern case,
From thoughtless wights, in some unweeted place.
Here first I enter'd, though with toil and pain,
The lowly vestibule of learning's fane:
Enter'd with pain, yet soon I found the way,
Though sometimes toilsome, many a sweet display.
Much did I grieve on that ill-fated morn
When I was first to school reluctant borne ;
Severe I thought the dame, thought oft she tried
To soothe my swelling spirits when I sighed ;
And oft, when harshly she reproved, I wept,
To my lone corner broken-hearted crept,
And thought of tender home, where anger never kept.
But soon, inured to alphabetic toils,
Alert I met the dame with jocund smiles;
First at the form, my task for ever true,
A little favourite rapidly I grew;
And oft she stroked my head with fond delight,
Held me a pattern to the dunce's sight;
And, as she gave my diligence its praise,
Talk'd of the honours of my future days.
Oh! had the venerable matron thought
Of all the ills by talent often brought;
Could she have seen me when revolving years.
Had brought me deeper in the vale of tears;
Then had she wept, and wish'd my wayward fate
Had been a lowlier, an unletter'd state:
Wish'd that, remote from worldly woes and strife,
Unknown, unheard, I might have pass'd through life.
|