INFANCY.
[This is one of the gems of the quarto volume of poetry recently published by the author of the "Omnipresence of the Deity;" but in our next we intend stringing together a few of the resplendent beauties which illumine almost every page.]
On yonder mead, that like a windless lake
Shines in the glow of heaven, a cherub boy
Is bounding, playful as a breeze new-born,
Light as the beam that dances by his side.
Phantom of beauty! with his trepid locks
Gleaming like water-wreaths,—a flower of life,
To whom the fairy world is fresh, the sky
A glory, and the earth one huge delight!
Joy shaped his brow, and Pleasure rolls his eye,
While Innocence, from out the budding lip
Darts her young smiles along his rounded cheek.
Grief hath not dimm'd the brightness of his form,
Love and Affection o'er him spread their wings,
And Nature, like a nurse, attends him with
Her sweetest looks. The humming bee will bound
From out the flower, nor sting his baby hand;
The birds sing to him from the sunny tree;
And suppliantly the fierce-eyed mastiff fawn
Beneath his feet, to court the playful touch.
To rise all rosy from the arms of sleep,
And, like the sky-bird, hail the bright-cheek'd morn
With gleeful song, then o'er the bladed mead
To chase the blue-wing'd butterfly, or play
With curly streams; or, led by watchful Love,
To hear the chorus of the trooping waves,
When the young breezes laugh them into life!
Or listen to the mimic ocean roar
Within the womb of spiry sea-shell wove,—
From sight and sound to catch intense delight,
And infant gladness from each happy face,—
These are the guileless duties of the day:
And when at length reposeful Evening comes,
Joy-worn he nestles in the welcome couch,
With kisses warm upon his cheek, to dream
Of heaven, till morning wakes him to the world.
The scene hath changed into a curtain'd room,
Where mournful glimmers of the mellow sun
Lie dreaming on the walls! Dim-eyed and sad,
And dumb with agony, two parents bend
O'er a pale image, in the coffin laid,—
Their infant once, the laughing, leaping boy,
The paragon and nursling of their souls!
Death touch'd him, and the life-glow fled away,
Swift as a gay hour's fancy; fresh and cold
As winter's shadow, with his eye-lids seal'd,
Like violet-lips at eve, he lies enrobed
An offering to the grave! but, pure as when
It wing'd from heaven, his spirit hath return'd,
To lisp his hallelujahs with the choirs
Of sinless babes, imparadised above.
Death, a Poem, by R. Montgomery.