"Suck, little Babe, oh suck again!
It cools my blood; it cools my brain;
Thy lips I feel them. Bay they
Draw from my heart the pain away
Oh! press me with thy little hats!.
It loosens something at my chest ;
About that tight and deadly band
I feel thy little fingers prest
The breeze I see is in the tree;
It comes to cool my Babe and me.
“Oh! love me, love me, little Boy! Thou art thy mother's only joy; And do not dread the waves below, When o'er the sea-rocks' edge we go: The high crag cannot work me harm, Nor leaping torrents when they howl; The Babe I carry on my arm, He saves for me my precious soul : Then happy lie; for blessed am 1; Without me my sweet Babe would die.
“Then, do not fear, my Boy! for thee Bold as a lion I will be;
And I will always be thy guide
Through hollow snows and rivers wide.
I'll build an Indian bower; I know
The leaves that make the softest bed;
And, if from me thou wilt not go,
But still be true till I am dead,
My pretty thing! then thou shalt sing
As merry as the birds in Spring.
"Thy father cares not for my breast. 'Tis thine, sweet Baby, there to rest : 'Tis all thine own!-and, if its hue Be changed, that was so fair to view, "Tis fair enough for thee, my dove! My beauty, little Child, is flown;
But thou wilt live with me in love,
And what if my poor cheek be brown?
'Tis well for me, thou canst not see
How pale and wan it else would be.
'Dread not their taunts, my little Life
I am thy father's wedded wife;
And underneath the spreading tree
We two will live in honesty.
If his sweet Boy he could forsake,
With me he never would have stay'd:
From him no harm my Babe can take,
But he, poor man is wretched made;
And every day we two will pray
For him that's gone and far away.
"I'll teach my Boy the sweetest things; I'll teach him how the owlet sings.
My little Babe! thy lips are still,
And thou hast almost sucked thy fill.
-Where art thou gone, my own dear Child
What wicked looks are those I see?
Alas! alas! that look so wild,
It never, never came from me :
If thou art mad, my pretty Lad,
Then I must be for ever sad.
"Oh! smile on me, my little Lamb!
For I thy own dear mother am.
My love for thee has well been tried :
I've sought thy father far and wide.
I know the poisons of the shade,
I know the earth-nuts fit for food;
Then, pretty dear, be not afraid;
We'll find thy father in the wood.
Now laugh and be gay, to the woods away!
And there, my Babe, we'll live for aye."
ART thou a Statesman, in the van
Of public business trained and bred!
-First learn to love one living man!
Then may'st thou think upon the deadl
A Lawyer art thou draw not nigh;
Go, carry to some other place
The hardness of thy coward eye,
The falsehood of thy sallow face,
Art thou a Man of purple cheer,
A rosy Man, right plump to see!
Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near ;
This grave no cushion is for thee.
Art thou a Man of gallant pride,
A Soldier, and no man of chiaff?
Welcome!-but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.
Physician art thou? One, all eyes,
Philosopher a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother's grave?
Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
That abject thing, thy soul, away.
-A Moralist perchance appears;
Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God;
One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all !
Shut close the door; press down the latch
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;
Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.
But who is He, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.
He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noon-day grove ;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley, he has viewed ;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.
In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,-
The harvest of a quiet eye
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
|