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,
Beneath huge Chimborazo's base,

Or Potosí's o'erhanging pines!

And thus for thee, O little child,

Through many a danger and escape,
The tall ships passed the stormy cape;
For thee in foreign lands remote,

Beneath the burning, tropic clime,

The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat,
Himself as swift and wild,

In falling, clutched the frail arbute,
The fibres of whose shallow root,

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,
That won thy little, beating heart before;
Thou strugglest for the open door.

Through these once solitary halls
Thy pattering footstep falls.

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.
And yonder meadows broad and damp
The fires of the besieging camp
Encircled with a burning belt.

Up and down these echoing stairs,
Heavy with the weight of cares,
Sounded his majestic tread;

Yes, within this very room
Sat he in those hours of gloom,
Weary both in heart and head.

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.