A PROPHECY.
O happy, happy, happy boy!
Let me tell you all your joy;
Let me whisper in your ear
All the secret of the seer.
Let me tell your fortune fair
To the wide and wandering air;
Let me share my rapture rare
With the social, songful air,—
With the gentle, genial air,
Kind to laughter and to prayer.
. . . . . . . . . .
Whatsoe’er the world may say,
You shall have the right of way:
You shall laugh, and you shall play,
And, in merry roundelay,
Dance with jolly faun and fay;
You shall have the wealth of May
For your dowry every day.
. . . . . . . . . .
Nature, from her frailest spar
To her oldest, utmost star,
All her miracles shall bring
For your blissful wondering;—
You shall be her priest and king.
Knowing what was never known,
Reaping what was never sown,
You shall feel the world your own,
On your universal throne.
And, in holy place apart,
(Blessed are the pure in heart!)
In a halo of delight,
Jubilant with glorious might,
You shall walk with God in white.
. . . . . . . . . .
This is all was shown to me
Of the child’s futurity;
What the youth and man will be—
Sealed is in mystery.
Scarcely can his angel see,
Face to face with Deity,
Farther into certainty.
God exceed the prophecy!
God be better to the boy
Than the parent’s dream of joy.
LITTLE RUTH.
I cannot feel that she is gone
So far, so far away;
Her little heart close to my own
Is beating day by day.
Ah! tender are these human ties;
May heaven at last reveal
Why on her eyes a slumber lies
E’en tears cannot unseal.
A look this darkness would displace
With a divine delight;
The soul’s rare grace in her fair face.
It was a blessed sight!
Her hair a happy halo wore
That lit the hearth and hall;
Alas! no more my study door
Heeds her confiding call.
Dear lips! where mirth and music wrote
The lore in Eden sung;
Seemed every note from her sweet throat
By elf or angel strung.
The robin, hark! is here again,
To woo the wondrous child;
But all in vain his ardent strain,—
Death may not be beguiled.