Читать книгу Selected Poems of Bernard Barton, the 'Quaker Poet' - Christopher Stokes W. - Страница 25

SONNETS TO CHARLOTTE M—[1818 and 1828]

Thou art but in life’s morning, and as yet

The world looks witchingly: its fruits and flowers

Are fair and fragrant, and its beauteous bowers

Seem haunts of happiness, before thee set,

All lovely as a landscape freshly wet 5

With dew, or bright with sunshine after showers;

Where pleasure dwells, and Flora’s magic powers

Woo thee to pluck joy’s peerless coronet.

Thus be it ever:—wouldst thou have it so,

Preserve thy present openness of heart;— 10

Cherish those generous feelings which now start

At base dissimulation, and that glow

Of native love for ties which home endears;

And thou wilt find the world no vale of tears.

[1818]

“Thou art but in life’s morning!”—Years have sped

Their silent flight since thus my idle rhyme

Addressed thee in thy being’s opening prime;

If since that hour some clouds at times have spread

Their shadow o’er thy path, these have not shed 5

On thee their anger; but, from time to time,

Have led thy thoughts tow’rd sunnier heights to climb;

Communing with the loved, lamented dead!

And still thou art but in the glowing morn

Of thy existence: hearts of finest mould, 10

And warm affections claim their right to hold

Those purer, nobler feelings with them born,

Which will not let them droop, of hope forlorn,

Nor in a few brief years be changed and cold.

[1828]