Poems (Louisa Blake)/Childhood

For works with similar titles, see Childhood.
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CHILDHOOD.
Oh! there is adream of life's young day 'Tis a vision of love and of bliss,It pours over all things a holy ray, Too bright for a world like this;When the young pure heart in its joyous mirth Beats with a rapture high,As it looks all around on the beautiful earth, And up to the glorious sky!
The proud and the heartless ones may scorn, May look coldly on or derideThe holy affections of life's young morn, As they flow in their full warm tide;But if there is aught to be envied below As bliss that is worthy of Heaven,'Tis the feelings refined, in their holiest glow, As to young, happy childhood they 're given.
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But alas! the loveliest, sweetest flower, Must shrink 'neath the withering blight,And darkly and thickly the clouds will lower To shadow the young spirit's light,And the blest fond heart with its swelling gush Of feelings exalted, high,Will pine when it meets not the answering rush Of a kindred sympathy.
Then sadly it feels that the spell is broken, That the cold chill hand of timeWithers the flowers of which hope had spoken In their bright and morning prime:That the soul of man, that ethereal fire Whose nature it is to rise,Clings fondly to earth, without a desire To mount and burst its ties.
Oh! 'tis humbling to think the immortal mind Grows fondly attached to earth,Its visions tend downward, its pinions confined, Forgetting its heavenly birth:Oh! they are most blest who unsullied and bright, Released from mortality's clod,In youth join the pure happy spirits of light Surrounding the throne of God.
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