Family

I have a boy of five years old;
His face is fair and fresh to see;
His limbs are cast in beautys mold
And dearly he loves me.

One morn we strolled on our dry walk,
Or quiet home all full in view,
And held such intermitted talk
As we are wont to do.

My thoughts on former pleasures ran;
I thought of Kilve's delightful shore,
Our pleasant home when spring began,
A long, long year before.

A day it was when I could bear
Some fond regrets to entertain;
With so much happiness to spare,
I could not feel a pain.

The green earth echoed to the feet
Of lambs that bounded through the glade,
From shade to sunshine, and as fleet
From sunshine back to shade.

Birds warbled round me, and each trace
Of inward sadness had its...

        The little loves and sorrows are my song:
            The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
            Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
        O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
        The little cares and carols that belong
            To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
            And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
        Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

        If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
            And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
        Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
            Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
        More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
        Time, looking back at last, should count my ...

Oh that Pieria's spring[1] would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude.
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Naught, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottos and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden Cli...

"Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand"
"Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think"
"How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink"
"Thy children left unfit, through vain demand"
"Of culture, even to feel or understand"
"My simplest Lay that to their memory"
"May cling; hard fate! which haply need not be"
"Did Justice mould the statutes of the Land."
"A Book time-cherished and an honoured name"
"Are high rewards; but bound they Nature's claim"
"Or Reason's? No hopes spun in timid line"
"From out the bosom of a modest home"
"Extend through unambitious years to come,"
"My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!"

1.

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue
Bright as thy mother's in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
Recall a scene of former joy,
And touch thy father's heart, my Boy!


2.

And thou canst lisp a father's name -
Ah, William, were thine own the same, -
No self-reproach - but, let me cease -
My care for thee shall purchase peace;
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy,
And pardon all the past, my Boy!


3.

Her lowly grave the turf has prest,
And thou hast known a stranger's breast;
Derision sneers upon thy birth,
And yields thee scarce a name on earth;
Yet shall not these one hope destroy, -
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!


4.

W...

Do you remember the wood, love,
That skirted the meadow so green;
Where the cooing was heard of the stock-dove,
And the sunlight just glinted between.
The trees, that with branches entwining
Made shade, where we wandered in bliss,
And our eyes with true love-light were shining, -
When you gave me the first loving kiss?

The ferns grew tall, graceful and fair,
But none were so graceful as you;
Wild flow'rs in profusion were there,
But your eyes were a lovelier blue;
And the tint on your cheek shamed the rose,
And your brow as the lily was white,
And your curls, bright as gold, when it glows,
In the crucible, liquid and bright.

And do you remember the stile,
Where so cosily sitting at eve,
Breathing forth ardent love-vows the while,
We ...

A month, sweet Little-ones, is past
Since your dear Mother went away,,
And she tomorrow will return;
Tomorrow is the happy day.

O blessed tidings! thought of joy!
The eldest heard with steady glee;
Silent he stood; then laughed amain,,
And shouted, " Mother, come to me!"

Louder and louder did he shout,
With witless hope to bring her near;
"Nay, patience! patience, little boy!
Your tender mother cannot hear."

I told of hills, and far-off town,
And long, long vale to travel through;,
He listens, puzzled, sore perplexed,
But he submits; what can he do ?

No strife disturbs his sister's breast;
She wars not with the mystery
Of time and distance, night and day;
The bonds of our humanity.

Her joy is like an instinct, ...

I. NOONDAY.

Two angry men - in heat they sever,
    And one goes home by a harvest field: -
"Hope's nought," quoth he, "and vain endeavor;
    I said and say it, I will not yield!

"As for this wrong, no art can mend it,
    The bond is shiver'd that held us twain;
Old friends we be, but law must end it,
    Whether for loss or whether for gain.

"Yon stream is small - full slow its wending;
    But winning is sweet, but right is fine;
And shoal of trout, or willowy bending -
    Though Law be costly - I'll prove them mine.

"His strawberry cow slipped loose her tether,
    And trod the best of my barley down;
His little lasses at play together
    Pluck'd the poppies my boys had grown.

"What then? - Why naught! She lack'...

I

Where art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
Oh find me, prosperous or undone!
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same
That I may rest; and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?

II

Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child;
To have despaired, have hoped, believed,
And been for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss;
Was ever darkness like to this?

III

He was among the prime in worth,
An object beauteous to behold;
Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace,
As hath been said, they were not base;
And never...

Genius of Raphael! if thy wings
Might bear thee to this glen,
With faithful memory left of things
To pencil dear and pen,
Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine,
And all his majesty
A studious forehead to incline
O'er this poor family.

The Mother, her thou must have seen,
In spirit, ere she came
To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name;
An image, too, of that sweet Boy,
Thy inspirations give
Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,
That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

    Four little chests all in a row,
    Dim with dust, and worn by time,
    All fashioned and filled, long ago,
    By children now in their prime.
    Four little keys hung side by side,
    With faded ribbons, brave and gay
    When fastened there, with childish pride,
    Long ago, on a rainy day.
    Four little names, one on each lid,
    Carved out by a boyish hand,
    And underneath there lieth hid
    Histories of the happy band
    Once playing here, and pausing oft
    To hear the sweet refrain,
    That came and went on the roof aloft,
    In the falling summer rain.


    "Meg" on the first lid, smooth and fair.
    I look in with loving eyes,
    For folded here, with well-known care,
    A goodly gathering lies,
 ...

Once in a lonely hamlet I sojourned
In which a Lady driven from France did dwell;
The big and lesser griefs with which she mourned,
In friendship she to me would often tell.
This Lady, dwelling upon British ground,
Where she was childless, daily would repair
To a poor neighbouring cottage; as I found,
For sake of a young Child whose home was there.

Once having seen her clasp with fond embrace
This Child, I chanted to myself a lay,
Endeavouring, in our English tongue, to trace
Such things as she unto the Babe might say:
And thus, from what I heard and knew, or guessed,
My song the workings of her heart expressed.

I

"Dear Babe, thou daughter of another,
One moment let me be thy mother!
An infant's face and looks are thine,
And sure a ...

Gentlest of critics, does your memory hold
    (I know it does) a record of the days
    When I, a schoolboy, earned your generous praise
For halting verse and stories crudely told?
Over these childish scrawls the years have rolled,
    They might not know the world's unfriendly gaze;
    But still your smile shines down familiar ways,
Touches my words and turns their dross to gold.

More dear to-day than in that vanished time
    Comes your nigh praise to make me proud and strong.
In my poor notes you hear Love's splendid chime,
    So unto you does this, my work belong.
Take, then, a little gift of fragile rhyme:
    Your heart will change it to authentic song.

Lines addressed to the daughter of Richard Dalton Williams.



Child of the heart of a child of sweetest song!
The poet's blood flows through thy fresh pure veins;
Dost ever hear faint echoes float along
Thy days and dreams of thy dead father's strains?
        Dost ever hear,
    In mournful times,
        With inner ear,
The strange sweet cadences of thy father's rhymes?

Child of a child of art, which Heaven doth give
To few, to very few as unto him!
His songs are wandering o'er the world, but live
In his child's heart, in some place lone and dim;
    And nights and days
        With vestal's eyes
        And soundless sighs
Thou keepest watch above thy father's lays.

Child of a dreamer of dreams all unfulfilled --
(And t...

I think no father under any sky
More fondly loved a daughter than did I,
And scarcely ever has a child been born
Whose loss her parents could more justly mourn.
Unspoiled and neat, obedient at all times,
She seemed already versed in songs and rhymes,
And with a highborn courtesy and art,
Though but a babe, she played a maiden's part.
Discreet and modest, sociable and free
From jealous habits, docile, mannerly,
She never thought to taste her morning fare
Until she should have said her morning prayer;
She never went to sleep at night until
She had prayed God to save us all from ill.
She used to run to meet her father when
He came from any journey home again;
She loved to work and to anticipate
The servants of the house ere they could wait
Upon her pare...

1

O raise those eyes to me again
And smile again so joyously,
And fear not, love; it was not pain
Nor grief that drew these tears from me;
Beloved child, thou canst not tell
The thoughts that in my bosom dwell
Whene'er I look on thee!

2

Thou knowest not that a glance of thine
Can bring back long departed years
And that thy blue eyes' magic shine
Can overflow my own with tears,
And that each feature soft and fair
And every curl of golden hair,
Some sweet remembrance bears.

3

Just then thou didst recall to me
A distant long forgotten scene,
One smile, and one sweet word from thee
Dispelled the years that rolled between;
I was a little child again,
And every after joy and pain
Seemed never to have b...

I have no children:

But tonight a poem came
in which a small child,
my daughter, appeared at the door
of a half-lit room
where late one night I wrote
at a heavy desk.

And though interruption
was hardly welcome
I took her to myself,
just as the poem,
comforted this daughter
until she found peace.

The poems as the children
come as they will come.

Oh that Pieria's spring1 would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude.
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Naught, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottos and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden...