TO A CHILD. DEAR child! how radiant on thy mother's knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles, Whose figures grace, With many a grotesque form and face, The ancient chimney of thy nursery! The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing-girl, the grave bashaw With bearded lip and chin; And, leaning idly o'er his gate, Beneath the imperial fan of state, The Chinese mandarin. With what a look of proud command Thou shakest in thy little hand The coral rattle with its silver bells, Making a merry tune! Thousands of years in Indian seas That coral grew, by slow degrees, Until some deadly and wild monsoon Dashed it on Coromandel's sand! Those silver bells Reposed of yore, As shapeless ore, Far down in the deep-sunken wells Of darksome mines, In some obscure and sunless place, Or Potosí's o'erhanging pines! And thus for thee, O little child, Through many a danger and escape, Beneath the burning, tropic clime, The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat, In falling, clutched the frail arbute, Uplifted from the soil, betrayed The silver veins beneath it laid, The buried treasures of the pirate, Time. But, lo! thy door is left ajar! Thou hearest footsteps from afar! And, at the sound, Thou turnest round With quick and questioning eyes, Like one, who, in a foreign land, Beholds on every hand Some source of wonder and surprise! And, restlessly, impatiently, Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free. The four walls of thy nursery Are now like prison walls to thee. No more thy mother's smiles, No more the painted tiles, Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, Through these once solitary halls The sound of thy merry voice Makes the old walls Jubilant, and they rejoice With the joy of thy young heart, O'er the light of whose gladness No shadows of sadness From the sombre background of memory start. Once, ah, once, within these walls, One whom memory oft recalls, The Father of his Country, dwelt. Up and down these echoing stairs, Yes, within this very room But what are these grave thoughts to thee?" Out, out! into the open air! Thy only dream is liberty, Thou carest little how or where. |