FOOTNOTES:
[767] Wrens still build (1896) in the same pollard oak tree, which survives in "Dora's Field"; and primroses grow beneath it.—Ed.
TO ——
UPON THE BIRTH OF HER FIRST-BORN CHILD, MARCH, 1833
"Tum porro puer, ut sævis projectus ab undis
Navita, nudus humi jacet," etc.—Lucretius.[768]
Composed March 1833.—Published 1835
[Written at Moresby near Whitehaven, when I was on a visit to my son, then incumbent of that small living. While I am dictating these notes to my friend, Miss Fenwick, January 24, 1843, the child upon whose birth these verses were written is under my roof, and is of a disposition so promising that the wishes and prayers and prophecies which I then breathed forth in verse are, through God's mercy, likely to be realised.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
Like a shipwreck'd Sailor tost
By rough waves on a perilous coast,
Lies the Babe, in helplessness
And in tenderest nakedness,
Flung by labouring nature forth 5
Upon the mercies of the earth.
Can its eyes beseech?—no more
Than the hands are free to implore:
Voice but serves for one brief cry;
Plaint was it? or prophecy 10
Of sorrow that will surely come?
Omen of man's grievous doom!
But, O Mother! by the close
Duly granted to thy throes;
By the silent thanks, now tending 15
Incense-like to Heaven, descending
Now to mingle and to move
With the gush of earthly love,
As a debt to that frail Creature,
Instrument of struggling Nature 20
For the blissful calm, the peace
Known but to this one release—
Can the pitying spirit doubt
That for human-kind springs out
From the penalty a sense 25
Of more than mortal recompense?