Ah! yes, I tremble for my boy with fears he cannot know,
Lest he take the path which I have ta’en, and find it leads to wo;
I tremble lest the Circean cup may yet be given him,
With roses decked and myrtles crown’d and sparkling to the brim;
For O! his foot hath not yet tried the path which mine hath trod,
Nor hath his young heart framed a wish he might not give to God.
And yet I will not think it—no! it will not, cannot be,
That fate shall ever fling its shroud of blackness over thee;
Thou art too like thy mother, child,—she would not harm this breast—
And all thy days have been too like the holy and the bless’d;