POEMS OF INFANCY AND YOUTH.
"Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty."
Look at me with thy large brown eyes,
Philip, my king!
For round thee the purple shadow lies
Of babyhood's royal dignities.
Lay on my neck thy tiny hand
With Love's invisible sceptre laden;
I am thine Esther, to command
Till thou shalt find thy queen-handmaiden, Philip, my king!
FROM "BITTER-SWEET."
WHAT is the little one thinking about? Very wonderful things, no doubt ; Unwritten history!
Unfathomed mystery!
Yet he chuckles, and crows, and nods, and winks,
As if his head were as full of kinks
And curious riddles as any sphinx!
Warped by colic, and wet by tears,
Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,
Our little nephew will lose two years;
And he 'll never know
Where the summers go;
He need not laugh, for he 'll find it so.
Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links
By which the manikin feels his way
Out from the shore of the great unknown,
Blind, and wailing, and alone,
Into the light of day?
Out from the shore of the unknown sea,
Tossing in pitiful agony;
Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,
Specked with the barks of little souls,
Barks that were launched on the other side,
And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide!
What does he think of his mother's eyes?
What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof, that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think of his mother's breast,
Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight,
Cup of his life, and couch of his rest? What does he think when her quick embrace Presses his hand and buries his face
Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell, With a tenderness she can never tell, Though she murmur the words
NAKED on parents' knees, a new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st when all around thee smiled: So live, that, sinking to thy last long sleep, Thou then mayst smile while all around thee weep.
From the Sanskrit of CALIDASA, by SIR WILLIAM JONES.
CHEEKS as soft as July peaches;
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches
Poppies paleness; round large eyes
Ever great with new surprise;
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness;
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness;
Happy smiles and wailing cries;
Crows, and laughs, and tearful eyes;
Lights and shadows, swifter born
Than on wind-swept autumn corn;
Ever some new tiny notion,
Making every limb all motion;
Catchings up of legs and arms;
Throwings back and small alarms;
Clutching fingers; straightening jerks ;
Twining feet whose each toe works;
Kickings up and straining risings;
Mother's ever new surprisings;
Hands all wants and looks all wonder
At all things the heavens under ;
Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings
That have more of love than lovings ;
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness that we prize such sinning;
Breakings dire of plates and glasses;
Graspings small at all that passes;
Pullings off of all that's able
To be caught from tray or table;
Silences, - small meditations
Deep as thoughts of cares for nations;
Breaking into wisest speeches
In a tongue that nothing teaches ;
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing;
Slumbers, such sweet angel-seemings
That we'd ever have such dreamings;
I HAVE got a new-born sister;
I was nigh the first that kissed her.
When the nursing-woman brought her
To papa, his infant daughter,
How papa's dear eyes did glisten! —
She will shortly be to christen;
And papa has made the offer,
I shall have the naming of her.
Now I wonder what would please her,
Charlotte, Julia, or Louisa?
Ann and Mary, they're too common;
Joan's too formal for a woman;
Jane's a prettier name beside;
But we had a Jane that died.
They would say, if 't was Rebecca,
That she was a little Quaker.
Edith's pretty, but that looks
Better in old English books;
Ellen's left off long ago;
Blanche is out of fashion now.
None that I have named as yet
Are so good as Margaret.
Emily is neat and fine;
What do you think of Caroline?
How I'm puzzled and perplexed
What to choose or think of next!
I am in a little fever
Lest the name that I should give her Should disgrace her or defame her ; — I will leave pana to name her.
WHERE did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through.
Where did you get that little tear? I found it waiting when I got here.
What makes your forehead so smooth and high? | Will they go stumbling blindly in the darkness
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than any one knows.
Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into hooks and bands.
Of Sorrow's tearful shades?
Or find the upland slopes of Peace and Beauty,
Whose sunlight never fades?
Will they go toiling up Ambition's summit,
The common world above?
Or in some nameless vale, securely sheltered,
Walk side by side with Love?
Some feet there be which walk Life's track
unwounded,
Which find but pleasant ways:
Some hearts there be to which this life is only
A round of happy days.
Feet, whence did you come, you darling things? But these are few.
From the same box as the cherubs' wings.
Without a hope or friend,
Who find their journey full of pains and losses,
And long to reach the end.
In part transfigured through the open door
Appears the selfsame scene.
Seated I see the two again,
But not alone; they entertain
A little angel unaware,
With face as round as is the moon ;
A royal guest with flaxen hair,
Who, throned upon his lofty chair,
Drums on the table with his spoon,
Then drops it careless on the floor,
To grasp at things unseen before.
Are these celestial manners? these
The ways that win, the arts that please?
Ah, yes; consider well the guest,
And whatsoe'er he does seems best;
He ruleth by the right divine
Of helplessness, so lately born
In purple chambers of the morn,
As sovereign over thee and thine.
He speaketh not, and yet there lies
A conversation in his eyes;
The golden silence of the Greek,
The gravest wisdom of the wise,
Not spoken in language, but in looks
More legible than printed books,
As if he could but would not speak.
And now, O monarch absolute,
Thy power is put to proof; for lo!
Resistless, fathomless, and slow,
The nurse comes rustling like the sea,
And pushes back thy chair and thee,
And so good night to King Canute.
As one who walking in the forest sees
A lovely landscape through the parted trees,
Then sees it not for boughs that intervene,
Or as we see the moon sometimes revealed
Through drifting clouds, and then again con-
There are two guests at table now;
The king, deposed, and older grown,
No longer occupies the throne,
The crown is on his sister's brow;
A princess from the Fairy Tales;
The very pattern girl of girls,
All covered and embowered in curls,
Rose tinted from the Isle of Flowers,
And sailing with soft silken sails
From far-off Dreamland into ours.
Above their bowls with rims of blue
Four azure eyes of deeper hue
Are looking, dreamy with delight;
Limpid as planets that emerge
Above the ocean's rounded verge,
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