“DESPONDING FATHER! MARK THIS ALTERED BOUGH”
Composed 1835.—Published 1835
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”—Ed.
Desponding Father! mark this altered bough,[49]
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow 5
Knits not o’er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling’s graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall 10
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call:
In all men, sinful is it to be slow
To hope——in Parents, sinful above all.
[49] Compare The Excursion (book iii. l. 649), and the sonnet (vol. vi. p. 72) beginning——
Surprised by joy——impatient as the Wind.
Ed.