To the dreary fountain-head And sees them, when the rain is d Thus the Seer, With vision clear, Sees forms appear and disappear, From birth to death, from death to b From earth to heaven, from heaven to Till glimpses more sublime Of things, unseen before, Unto his wondering eyes reveal The Universe, as an immeasurable wh Turning for evermore In the rapid and rushing river of Time 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 sta The Chinese mandarin. With what a look of proud com Thou shakest in thy little hand The coral rattle with its silver be Making a merry tune! Thousands of years in Indian sea That coral grew, by slow degrees Until some deadly and wild mons 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 steep Potosi's mountain pines! And thus for thee, O little child, Through many a danger and escape, Beneath a 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 miser, 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 surpri And, restlessly, impatiently, Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free Are now like prison walls to thee. Delight thee, nor the playthings on t Through these once solitary halls Makes the old walls Jubilant, and they rejoice With the joy of thy young heart, O'er the light of whose gladness |