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By Grace Aguilar
Smile
on, sweet babe! would I could know
Whence came that soft and beaming glow,
On thy sweet Features thrown;
What joyous thought that smile has wreathed,
What inward voice of gladness breathed,
To make that look thine own.
We
held not forth a glitt’ring toy,
Nor woo’d thee with light song to joy,
Nor danc’d thee high in air;
But gently in the cradle laid,
Thine own sweet thought that smile had stay’d,
And fixed its impress there.
Whence
came it? tho’ thy mother bends
Caressing, as thy wants she tends,
Thou dost not know her voice;
A stranger’s arm might softly hold thee,
A stranger’s breast in love enfold thee,
And yet thou wouldst rejoice.
Thou
hast no dream of Love’s strong power,
The ecstatic joy, yet anxious hour
Thine infancy doth claim;
Thou hast no mem’ries of the past,
No thought the present to o’ercast,
Nor dream of future fame.
Oh
what seest thou? what fairy dream,
Doth o’er thins infant spirit gleam?
By darker souls unknown?
Hear’st thou sweet voices ling’ring nigh?
Canst thou thro’ space and ether fly?
Make lovelier worlds thine own?
And
in thine innocence, art twined
With purer beings of soul and mind?
That fly, when thou wilt know
This earth’s o’erclouded tale of life,
Of sorrow, and of sin and strife,
And Love’s deep rosy glow?—
Thou
art immortal! God hath placed
The breath of life in thee, and traced
His Image, babe, on thine!
Oh doth a rainbow colour’d thought,
By ministering spirits wrought,
Before thy fancy shine?
How
may’st thou answer? Loveliest,
Thou wilt forget what thoughts had rest
On each forgotten hour;
Thou wilt look back, in vain,—no dream,
Of what thou wert, will faintly gleam,
Thro’ more awakened power.
Vainly
wouldst thou the past recall,
What did thine infancy befall,
Its joyance and its care;
For we have smil’d perchance like thee,
In vanished hours of infant glee,
Yet only know—we were.
Smile!
while we clasp thee, gentle one,
Whom such sweet prayers are whisper’d on,
Smile in thy baby glee!
One lovely thought that smile expresseth.
Babe as thou art, a FATHER blesseth,
A GOD hath love for thee!
1842.
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