THE CHILD READING THE BIBLE.
“A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, to waylay.
...
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death.” Wordsworth.
I saw him at his sport erewhile,
The bright, exulting boy!
Like summer’s lightning came the smile
Of his young spirit’s joy—
A flash that, wheresoe’er it broke,
To life undreamt-of beauty woke.
His fair locks waved in sunny play,
By a clear fountain’s side,
Where jewel-colour’d pebbles lay
Beneath the shallow tide;
And pearly spray at times would meet
The glancing of his fairy feet.
He twined him wreaths of all spring-flowers,
Which drank that streamlet’s dew;
He flung them o’er the wave in showers,
Till, gazing, scarce I knew
Which seem’d more pure, or bright, or wild,
The singing fount or laughing child.
To look on all that joy and bloom
Made earth one festal scene,
Where the dull shadow of the tomb
Seem’d as it ne’er had been.
How could one image of decay
Steal o’er the dawn of such clear day?
I saw once more that aspect bright—
The boy’s meek head was bow’d
In silence o’er the Book of Light,
And, like a golden cloud—
The still cloud of a pictured sky—
His locks droop’d round it lovingly.
And if my heart had deem’d him fair,
When, in the fountain-glade,
A creature of the sky and air,
Almost on wings he play’d;
Oh! how much holier beauty now
Lit the young human being’s brow!
The being born to toil, to die,
To break forth from the tomb
Unto far nobler destiny
Than waits the skylark’s plume!
I saw him, in that thoughtful hour,
Win the first knowledge of his dower.
The soul, the awakening soul I saw—
My watching eye could trace
The shadows of its new-born awe
Sweeping o’er that fair face:
As o’er a flower might pass the shade
By some dread angel’s pinion made!
The soul, the mother of deep fears,
Of high hopes infinite,
Of glorious dreams, mysterious tears,
Of sleepless inner sight;
Lovely, but solemn, it arose,
Unfolding what no more might close.
The red-leaved tablets,[423] undefiled,
As yet, by evil thought—
Oh! little dream’d the brooding child
Of what within me wrought,
While his young heart first burn’d and stirr’d,
And quiver’d to the eternal word.
And reverently my spirit caught
The reverence of his gaze—
A sight with dew of blessing fraught
To hallow after-days;
To make the proud heart meekly wise,
By the sweet faith in those calm eyes.
It seem’d as if a temple rose
Before me brightly there;
And in the depths of its repose
My soul o’erflow’d with prayer,
Feeling a solemn presence nigh—
The power of infant sanctity!
O Father! mould my heart once more
By thy prevailing breath!
Teach me, oh! teach me to adore
E’en with that pure one’s faith—
A faith, all made of love and light,
Child-like, and therefore full of might!
[423] “All this, and more than this, is now engraved upon the red-leaved tablets of my heart.”—Haywood.