The Power of Solitude/To a friend, on her birth day
ΤΟA FRIEND,ON HER BIRTH DAY.
Welcome this day; more grateful to my soul,Than freshening breezes to the hectic cheekOf sickness, or the lucid stream of lifeTo fainting thirst; O, welcome once again!Let the vain bard in fiction's airy strainsUnfold mysterious tales: let him to praiseWith syren flattery mark the various gods,Who o'er thy natal day with eye benignIndulgent paused, and hailed thee, as their own;Let him more studious point with curious artThe planetary powers, whose presence crownedThy hour of birth, and wove thy future fate. To me no fiction comes. With tenderer joyI hail the day, whose trembling light bewitchedThine infant eyes in strange surprise, and shotA nameless rapture. I the day will hail,Which gave a mother's soul its throbbing wish,And in a father's heart poured the full tideOf ecstasy divine. No other godsWatched o'er thy birth, and in their arms receivedThe lovelier offspring of connubial bliss.
E'en at this hour, methinks, I see their joys:With trembling hope, with earnest gaze they bend,And each to each unfolds the dawning grace,The mimic features; and, as fancy wills,Blend each the faint resemblance, till it glowsBright, as the living picture, bright, as truth:Dearer the image grows, while they entrancedEssay to trace the varying lines of life,And seize from night the mystic hues of fate; Unmindful, that the storm of adverse life,The cold, dead blight of grief, the searching frostOf harsh misfortune, might untimely rage,And crush the opening blossom, in the shadeIts beauties hide, and, like the lifeless shrub,In dreary solitudes neglected leave,The sport and passion of the wintry blast:Unmindful, that the orphan's lonely tearsMight frequent wet those cheeks, where innocenceSlept, veiled in virgin blushes, slept with love.
O! happy they; for in that blessed tranceThey knew but pleasure: in that tranquil faceThey saw but virtue, pure, as ever cheeredAn angel's habitation: in that hourThey dreamed with hope, nor knew the vision vain;Nor knew the father parted from the child,Ere fifteen winters swept their sullen course. Mysterious heaven! yet, if the souls of those,Who dwell in virtue, who with peace and loveSmooth life's rough paths, and lend to misery's cryAn ear of grace, and dry the widow's tears;If to those souls, when hence removed, be given,Clad in etherial light, to visit here,And hover round the precincts of the good,Thou, sainted spirit, who with fostering careWatched o'er thy Clara's sweet infantine hours,And formed her soul to harmonise with truth,Thou too shalt smile benignant, and with meBless this propitious day, when in thy childEach finer lineament of soul displayed,Each modest virtue, each attractive charm,Which chaste refinement lends to cultured sense,Blend in soft union, and expressive yieldA lovelier whole, which heaven might well approve.
Yet may I ask one grateful smile on me:And if my heart deserve the sacred boon,So pledged, so fondly claimed, as heaven's best gift;If e'er my heart, long torn with care and pain,May yet indulge beneath auspicious powersThe sympathies of life: O! teach me still,Thro each succeeding year to own this dayWith holy joy: O! teach me, how to shieldFrom cankering care the cherub choice of truth,And foster in the arms of virtuous love.So to each other dear, as life declines,Still hand in hand, our hopes and blessings one,In the soft shades of fond, domestic peaceTogether may we dwell: nor heed the humOf busy man, nor court the dangerous walks,Where wild ambition leads her splendid trainTo gorgeous ruin; but with blameless heartsAnd unpolluted hands thro every changeThe virtues cherish: may no parting pain, Till to the bourn arrived, where all must part.In the last hour. Sweet be the sleep of death,Nor long the absence, till we meet in heaven,To perfect there the union formed below.