This simple child has claims
On your sentiment—her name's
Geraldine.
Be tender—but beware,
For she's frolicsome as fair,
And fifteen.
She has gifts that have not cloyed,
For these gifts she has employed,
And improved:
She has bliss which lives and leans
Upon loving—and that means
She is loved.
She has grace. A grace refined
By sweet harmony of mind:
And the Art,
And the blessed Nature, too,
Of a tender, and a true
Little heart.
And yet I must not vault
Over any little fault
That she owns:
Or others might rebel,
And might enviously swell
In their zones.
She is tricksy as the fays,
Or her pussy when it plays
With a string:
She's a goose about her cat,
And her ribbons—and all that
Sort of thing.
These foibles are a blot,
Still she never can do what
Is not nice,
Such as quarrel, and give slaps—
As I've known her get, perhaps,
Once or twice.
The spells that move her soul
Are subtle—sad or droll—
She can show
That virtuoso whim
Which consecrates our dim
Long-ago.
A love that is not sham
For Stothard, Blake, and Lamb;
And I've known
Cordelia's sad eyes
Cause angel-tears to rise
In her own.
Her gentle spirit yearns
When she reads of Robin Burns—
Luckless Bard!
Had she blossomed in thy time,
How rare had been the rhyme
—And reward!
Thrice happy then is he
Who, planting such a Tree,
Sees it bloom
To shelter him—indeed
We have sorrow as we speed
To our doom!
I am happy having grown
Such a Sapling of my own;
And I crave
No garland for my brows,
But peace beneath its boughs
Till the grave.