Poems (Douglas)/Childhood's Pleasures

by Sarah Parker Douglas

Childhood's Pleasures.

'Twas a bright summer morn,
  Dewy pearls lay
On the soft blossom'd thorn,
Fragrant and gay;
Sweetly the rose outspread,
  And the blue violet's head

Gleam'd 'bove its grassy bed,
  In the sun's ray.
Daisies, like stars of white,
Spangled the earth;
Streams, in the sunny light,
  Danced as in mirth,

Brightly meandering,
  As the bee's wand'ring wing
Paused where each scented thing,
Blooming, had birth.
The lark, from its lowly nest,
  Springing on high,

Floated, with speckled breast,
  'Neath the blue sky;
'Mid the pure ether borne,
Hailing the light's return,
Off'ring to rosy morn
  Carols of joy.

In a valley bloom'd many a gem,
  Lovely and fair:
The woodbine, with lithesome stem:,
  Coil'd itself there;
When joyous feet sought the bowers,
Tiny hands reach'd the flowers,
Bringing down dewy showers,
  On their bright hair.

A mother's eye fondly dwelt
  On each glad brow,
As she sighed—"Once this bosom felt
  All they feel now:"
A tear fell,—ah! could it be—
Could her babes' childish glee,
Bursting in purity,
  Wake aught of woe?

Ah, no! it was mem'ry's eye
  Turn'd to the time
When she view'd, with as wild a joy,
  Meadows in prime;
When those of her mother's hearth
Join'd in her childish mirth—
Now all had passed from earth
  To a bright clime.

"And thus shall it be," she thought—
  "Thus shall it be,
Their eyes shall with tears be fraught,
  Thinking on me;
Yet, my babes, catch the rays,
Never, in after days,
Beams come like infancy's
  Unalloyed glee."