And it was compliment when’er she smiled
To say, ‘Thou’rt like thy mother, my fair child’.”
Over such a child the mother hangs with devoted fondness, with sweet recollections of her infancy, and
“of the change of time and tide
Since Heaven first sent the blessing by her side,”
and with mournful anticipations, of what would befall the fledged bird, when it should grow impatient of the nest. The child at length awakes—
“And when her shadowy gaze
Had lost the dazzled look of wild amaze,”
she relates her dream to the mother.
“Methought, oh! gentle mother, by thy side