Such dreams as brought poor souls mishap,
When Baby-Time was fond of pap:
And still will cheat with feigning joys,
While women smile, and men are boys?
The blooming rose conceals an asp,
And bliss coquetting flies the grasp:
And, waking up, snap goes the slight
Poor cord that held my foolish kite,—
Your slave, you may not care to know it,
Your humble slave will be your Poet.
Farewell!—can aught for her be will’d
Whose every wish is all fulfill’d?
Farewell!—could wishing weave a spell,
There’s promise in those words “Fare well!”
I wish your wish may not be marr’d;—
Now wish yourself a better Bard!
THE CRADLE
Aye, here is your cradle! Why surely, my Jenny,
Such slender dimensions go somewhat to show
You were an exceedingly small pic-a-ninny
Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago.
Your baby-days flow’d in a much-troubled channel;
I see you as then in your impotent strife,—
A tight little bundle of wailing and flannel,
Perplex’d with that newly-found fardel called life.
To hint at an infantine frailty’s a scandal;
All bye-gones are bye-gones—and somebody knows
It was bliss such a baby to dance and to dandle,
Your cheeks were so velvet—so rosy your toes.
Aye, here is your cradle! and Hope, a bright spirit,
With Love now is watching beside it, I know;
They guard o’er the nest you yourself did inherit
Some nineteen or twenty short summers ago.
It is Hope gilds the future, Love welcomes it smiling;
Thus wags this old world, therefore stay not to ask,—
“My future bids fair, is my future beguiling?”
If mask’d, still it pleases, then raise not its mask.