To A Child.

(From The "Garland Of Rachel.")


How shall I sing you, Child, for whom
So many lyres are strung;
Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?

What rocks there are on either hand!
Suppose--'tis on the cards--
You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!

How shall I then be shamed, undone,
For ah! with what a scorn
Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,--

Who o'er your "helpless cradle" bent
His idle verse to turn;
And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern!

Nay,--let my words be so discreet,
That, keeping Chance in view,
Whatever after fate you meet
A part may still be true.

Let others wish you mere good looks,--
Your sex is always fair;
Or to be writ in Fortune's books,--
She's rich who has to spare:

I wish you but a heart that's kind,
A head that's sound and clear;
(Yet let the heart be not too blind,
The head not too severe!)

A joy of life, a frank delight;
A not-too-large desire;
And--if you fail to find a Knight--
At least ... a trusty Squire.

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

Of His Mistress.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

Palomydes.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Toyman.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Climacteric.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

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A Childs Battles

Praise of the knights of old
May sleep: their tale is told,
And no man cares:
The praise which fires our lips is
A knights whose fame eclipses
All of theirs.

The ruddiest light in heaven
Blazed as his birth-star seven
Long years ago:
All glory crown that old year
Which brought our stout small soldier
With the snow!

Each baby born has one
Star, for his friends a sun,
The first of stars:
And we, the more we scan it,
The more grow sure your planet,
Child, was Mars.

For each one flower, perchance,
Blooms as his cognizance:
The snowdrop chill,
The violet unbeholden,
For some: for you the golden
Daffodil

Erect, a fighting flower,
It breasts the breeziest hour
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André Le Chapelain.

(Clerk of Love, 1170.)

His Plaint To Venus Of The Coming Years.

"Plus ne suis ce que j'ay esté
Et ne le sçaurois jamais estre;
Mon beau printemps et mon esté
Ont fait le saut par la fenestre."


Queen Venus, round whose feet,
To tend thy sacred fire,
With service bitter-sweet
Nor youths nor maidens tire;--
Goddess, whose bounties be
Large as the un-oared sea;--

Mother, whose eldest born
First stirred his stammering tongue,
In the world's youngest morn,
When the first daisies sprung:--
Whose last, when Time shall die,
In the same grave shall lie:--

Hear thou one suppliant more!
Must I, thy Bard, grow old,
Bent, with the temples frore,
Not jocund be nor bold,
To tune for folk in May
Ballad and ...

Henry Austin Dobson

To A Little Boy.

I.

Dear little one with eyes so blue,
    And silken ringlets of flaxen hair!
Oh, may life have in store for you
    Something better than anguish and care!
            Oh, may thy footsteps guided be
                In paths of peace and pleasantness!
            Oh, may those bright eyes never see
                Much of the cold world's bitterness!


II.

Dear little one with innocent lips,
    Tasting life's cup at the sparkling brim!
Oh, may the dregs that sorrow sips
    Ever be kept aloof from him!
            Oh, may the smile on his dimpled face
                Through the years to come still linger there!
            Oh, may Time's fingers gently place
                The silver strands in his flaxen hair!

George W. Doneghy

To An Infant Daughter.

Sweet gem of infant fairy-flowers!
Thy smiles on life' unclosing hours,
Like sunbeams lost in summer showers,
They wake my fears;
When reason knows its sweets and sours,
They'll change to tears.

God help thee, little senseless thing!
Thou, daisy-like of early spring,
Of ambush'd winter's hornet sting
Hast yet to tell;
Thou know'st not what to-morrows bring:
I wish thee well.

But thou art come, and soon or late
'Tis thine to meet the frowns of fate,
The harpy grin of envy's hate,
And mermaid-smiles
Of worldly folly's luring bait,
That youth beguiles.

And much I wish, whate'er may be
The lot, my child, that falls to thee,
Nature may never let thee see
Her glass betimes,
But keep thee from my failings free,--
N...

John Clare

The Poet To His Childhood

In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand,
--Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land.
And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills,
    When you thought, and chose the hills.

'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain.
With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain,
And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be
    Unconsoled by sympathy.'

But how dared you use me so?    For you bring my ripe years low
To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know.
And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears.
    But you mark not, through the years.

'To the mountain leads my way.    If the plains are green to-day,
These my ba...

Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell

The Only Daughter

Illustration Of A Picture

They bid me strike the idle strings,
As if my summer days
Had shaken sunbeams from their wings
To warm my autumn lays;
They bring to me their painted urn,
As if it were not time
To lift my gauntlet and to spurn
The lists of boyish rhyme;
And were it not that I have still
Some weakness in my heart
That clings around my stronger will
And pleads for gentler art,
Perchance I had not turned away
The thoughts grown tame with toil,
To cheat this lone and pallid ray,
That wastes the midnight oil.

Alas! with every year I feel
Some roses leave my brow;
Too young for wisdom's tardy seal,
Too old for garlands now.
Yet, while the dewy breath of spring
Steals o'er the tingling air,
And spreads and fans...

Oliver Wendell Holmes