LITTLE CHILDREN.
Reading edition
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BY MRS. C. H. W. ESLING.
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I love those little happy things, they seem to me but given,
To mirror on this lower earth, the far-off smiling heaven,
Their blue eyes shining ever bright like violets steep’d in dew.
Their looks of angel innocence—who’d not believe them true?
The echo of the merry laugh, so full of heartfelt glee,
The very revelry of joy, untameable, and free;
The little feet that almost seem to scorn our mother earth,
But ever, ever lisping on in frolic, and in mirth.
Oh! how we look on them, and think of all our childhood’s hours,
When we were sunny-hearted too, and wander’d among flowers,
When like to theirs, our floating locks, were left to woo the breeze,
Oh! Time, in all thy calendar, thou’st no such times as these.
I do forget how many years have sadly passed me by,
Since my young sun of rising morn, shone gayly in the sky;
When I behold these happy things in all their joyous play,
Pouring the sunshine of their hearts, upon my cloudy way.
Would I could watch their gentle growth, and guard them from the blight,
That ever tracks the steps of Time, like darken’d clouds of night,
Would I could see their laughing eyes still innocently wear
The looks of guileless purity, unmixed with woe, or care.
Dear little children, ye have been to me, a source of joy,
The sweet drop in the bitter cup of life’s too sad alloy,
In ye, mine early days return, the rainbow days of youth,
Of single-hearted blessedness, of tenderness, and truth.
Philadelphia, January, 1841.