Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/296

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LINES BY A YOUNG LADY BORN BLIND.
The old man sleeps, and the old man dreams; His head droops on his breast,His hands relax their feeble hold, And fall to his lap in rest:The old man sleeps, and in sleep he dreams, And in dreams again is blest.
The years unroll their fearful scroll— He is a child again;A mother's tones are in his ear, And drift across his brain;He chases gaudy butterflies Far down the rolling plain;
He plucks the wild rose in the woods, And gathers eglantine;And holds the golden buttercups Beneath his sister's chin;And angles in the meadow brook With a bent and naked pin;
He loiters down the grassy land, And by the brimming pool;And a sigh escapes the parting lips, As he hears the bell for school;And he wishes it were one o'clock, And the morning never dull.
A mother's hands pressed on the head, Her kiss is on his brow—A summer breeze blows in at the door, With the toss of a leafy bough;And the boy is a white-haired man again, And his eyes are tear-filled now.
Lines by a Young Lady Born Blind.
If this delicious grateful flower,Which blows but for a little hour,Should to the sight as lovely beAs from its fragrance seems to me,A sigh must then its colour showFor that's the softest joy I know;And sure the Rose is like a sigh,Born just to soothe, and then—to die.
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