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Poems (Denver)/Childlike in thine Innocence

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4523962Poems — Childlike in thine InnocenceMary Caroline Denver and Jane Campbell Denver
CHILDLIKE IN THINE INNOCENCE.
Childlike in thine innocence
Thou dost rise before my view,
With thy locks of glossy brown,
And thine eyes of azure hue.
Years have passed since last we met,
But as drops of water they,
When I measure them with hours
Passed when children out at play.

Years have passed—and what art thou?
Thou wast once so glad and wild,
Can I picture to myself
Thee as other than a child?
Can the feelings we possessed
Pass with lapse of years away?
They are linked within my breast
Round the beautiful and gay;

Round the beautiful and gay;—
Hast thou still the magic spell,
Which my heart hath ever loved,
Loved so long and loved so well?
Do the dreams of young romance
Tenant still thy fertile mind?
Brighter images than these
Never memory enshrined!

Then we peopled the vast earth
With bright beings fancy-formed,
Till the space above was filled,
And the air with fairies swarmed
Then our thoughts were eagle-thoughts
With the sunbeam's track combined!
And the world we made was bright
With the angels of the mind.

Do they guard that empire still,
Bringing music from each sphere
Scorning all the worldly things
That so cramp and curb us here?
O! how cold must seem the world
To the warm and sanguine heart,
When the eagle-dreams of youth
Spread their pinions to depart!

May they linger with us long,
We are nought but children yet:
Though the world with all its wiles
Fain would teach us to forget.
Tho' we tread no more the fields,
Nor the laurel-planted hill,
Which our early footsteps trod,
Let us, let us love them still!

For the beings we have made
Still inhabit those lone hills;
And their spirit-voices ring
From the depths of shaded rills!
And their pinions wave above
Like a thin, transparent cloud:
And the air is hushed and still,
And the stately pine is bowed.

Oftentimes, within our hearts
Will those spirit-voices sound,
For their place of birth to them,
Must be consecrated ground.
When their known and solemn tread
Through each dreaming bosom thrills,
We will wander back again
To our own familiar hills.