OH, WOULD I WERE A CHILD!

———

BY MARIE DELAMAIE.

———

Oh, would I were a child again!

A child with spirit free,

Singing glad songs of merriment

Beneath the hawthorn tree,

Watching the many-colored clouds

Pursue their course on high,

Trying to count the silver stars

That gem the evening sky,

Weaving, beside bright sparkling streams,

A wreath of sunny flowers,

Or reading wondrous fairy tales,

In green, sequestered bowers.

The lights, the sounds of Nature then

My happy hours beguiled;

Would I could feel their power again—

Oh, would I were a child!

I chose my sprightly playmates then

For simplicity and mirth,

I cared not for the lofty

Or the great ones of the earth;

Rich in the love of cherished friends,

I asked no monied store,

Save to relieve the beggar’s wants,

That wandered to my door.

I wrote my artless verses then

Without effort, toil, or aim,

And read them to a list’ning group,

Without a hope of fame;

By worldly views, ambitious dreams,

My thoughts were undefiled;

Would I were now as free from care—

Oh, would I were a child!

Yet soon my youthful heart began

To spurn a life like this,

I deemed the far-off glittering world

A fairy land of bliss;

I left my playmates to their sports

And castles built in air;

I dreamed of scenes through which I moved

A lady, proud and fair,

And, while my short and simple tasks

With careless haste I conned,

I longed to study learned lore

My feeble powers beyond—

Like Rassalas around me

The Happy Valley smiled,

Yet I longed to leave its limits

And cease to be a child.

The magic circle of the world

I now have stood within,

Yet I turn from its frivolity,

I tremble at its sin.

And Knowledge! my long cherished hope,

The object of my love,

She still eludes my eager quest,

Still soars my grasp above;

I add from her bright treasury

New jewels to my store,

Yet miserable, I murmur

That I cannot grasp in more,

Before me seem exhaustless heaps

Of mental riches piled,

Yet still, in learning’s brightest gifts,

I feel myself a child.

Oh foolish, oh repining heart,

Thus willfully to cast

Vain wishes to the Future,

Fond longings to the Past!

Panting to overleap the bounds

Of childhood’s simple track,

Anxious to ’scape from woman’s cares

And trace the journey back;

Should I not rather be content

To pass from youth to age

Striving to do my appointed work

In life’s short pilgrimage?

Then let me school my rebel heart,

And calm my fancies wild,

And be in meek, submissive love

Indeed a little child.