A tale of Paraguay/Dedication
DEDICATION.
TO
EDITH MAY SOUTHEY
I.
Edith! ten years are number'd, since the day,
Which ushers in the cheerful month of May,
To us by thy dear birth, my daughter dear,
Was blest. Thou therefore didst the name partake
Of that sweet month, the sweetest of the year;
But fitlier was it given thee for the sake
Of a good man, thy father's friend sincere,
Who at the font made answer in thy name.
Thy love and reverence rightly may he claim.
For closely hath he been with me allied
In friendship's holy bonds, from that first hour
When in our youth we met on Tejo's side;
Bonds which, defying now all Fortune's power,
Time hath not loosen'd, nor will Death divide.
II.
A child more welcome, by indulgent Heaven
Never to parents' tears and prayers was given!
For scarcely eight months at thy happy birth
Had pass'd, since of thy sister we were left,—
Our first-born and our only babe, bereft.
Too fair a flower was she for this rude earth!
The features of her beauteous infancy
Have faded from me, like a passing cloud,
Or like the glories of an evening sky:
And seldom hath my tongue pronounced her name
Since she was sunnnon'd to a happier sphere.
But that dear love so deeply wounded then,
I in my soul with silent faith sincere
Devoutly cherish till we meet again.
III.
I saw thee first with trembling thankfulness,
O daughter of my hopes and of my fears!
Press'd on thy senseless cheek a troubled kiss,
And breathed my blessing over thee with tears.
But memory did not long our bliss alloy;
For gentle nature who had given relief
Wean'd with new love the chasten'd heart from grief;
And the sweet season minister'd to joy
IV.
It was a season when their leaves and flowers
The trees as to an Arctic summer spread:
When chilling wintry winds and snowy showers,
Which had too long usurp'd the vernal hours
Like spectres from the sight of morning, fled
Before the presence of that joyous May;
And groves and gardens all the live-long day
Rung with the birds' loud love-songs. Over all,
One thrush was heard from morn till even-fall:
Thy Mother well remembers when she lay
The happy prisoner of the genial bed,
How from yon lofty poplar's topmost spray
At earliest dawn his thrilling pipe was heard;
And when the light of evening died away,
That blithe and indefatigable bird
Still his redundant song of joy and love preferr'd.
V.
How I have doted on thine infant smiles
At morning when thine eyes unclosed on mine;
How, as the months in swift succession roll'd,
I mark'd thy human faculties unfold,
And watch'd the dawning of the light divine;
And with what artifice of playful guiles
Won from thy lips with still-repeated wiles
Kiss after kiss, a reckoning often told,—
Something I ween thou know'st; for thou hast seen
Thy sisters in their turn such fondness prove,
And felt how childhood in its winning years
The attempered soul to tenderness can move.
This thou canst tell; but not the hopes and fears
With which a parent's heart doth overflow,—
The thoughts and cares inwoven with that love,—
Its nature and its depth, thou dost not, canst not know.
VI.
The years which since thy birth have pass'd away
May well to thy young retrospect appear
A measureless extent:—like yesterday
To me, so soon they fill'd their short career.
To thee discourse of reason have they brought,
With sense of time and change; and something too
Of this precarious state of things have taught,
Where Man abideth never in one stay;
And of mortality a mournful thought.
And I have seen thine eyes suffused in grief.
When I have said that with autumnal grey
The touch of eld hath mark'd thy father's head;
That even the longest day of life is brief,
And mine is falling fast into the yellow leaf.
VII.
Thy happy nature from the painful thought
With instinct turns, and scarcely canst thou bear
To hear me name the Grave: Thou knowest not
How large a portion of my heart is there!
The faces which I loved in infancy
Are gone; and bosom-friends of riper age,
With whom I fondly talk'd of years to come,
Summon'd before me to their heritage
Are in the better world, beyond the tomb.
And I have brethren there, and sisters dear,
And dearer babes. I therefore needs must dwell
Often in thought with those whom still I love so well.
VIII.
Thus wilt thou feel in thy maturer mind;
When grief shall be thy portion, thou wilt find
Safe consolation in such thoughts as these,—
A present refuge in affliction's hour.
And if indulgent Heaven thy lot should bless
With all imaginable happiness.
Here shalt thou have, my child, beyond all power
Of chance, thy holiest, surest, best delight.
Take therefore now thy Father's latest lay,—
Perhaps his last;—and treasure in thine heart
The feelings that its musing strains convey.
A song it is of life's declining day,
Yet meet for youth. Vain passions to excite,
No strains of morbid sentiment I sing,
Nor tell of idle loves with ill-spent breath;
A reverent offering to the Grave I bring,
And twine a garland for the brow of Death.