FOR the first time a lovely scene Earth saw and smiled, A gentle form with pallid mien Bending o'er a new-born child; The pang, the anguish, and the woe That speech hath never told, Fled, as the sun with noontide glow Dissolves the snow-wreath cold, Leaving the bliss that none but mothers know; While he, the partner of her heaven-taught joy Knelt in adoring praise beside his beauteous boy. She, first of all our mortal race, Learn'd the ecstasy to trace The expanding form of infant grace From her own life-spring fed; To mark each radiant hour, Heaven's sculpture still more perfect growing, More full of power; The little foot's elastic tread, The rounded cheek, like rose-bud glowing, The fringed eye with gladness flowing As the pure, blue fountains roll; And then those lisping sounds to hear, Unfolding to her thrilling ear The strange, mysterious, never-dying soul, And with delight intense To watch the angel-smile of sleeping innocence. No more she mourned lost Eden's joy, Or wept her cherish'd flowers, In their primeval bowers By wrecking tempests riven; The thorn and thistle of the exile's lot She heeded not. So all-absorbing was her sweet employ To rear the incipient man, the gift her God had given. And when his boyhood bold A richer beauty caught, Her kindling glance of pleasure told The incense of her idol-thought; Not for the born of clay Is pride's exulting thrill, Dark herald of the downward way, And ominous of ill. Even his cradled brother's smile The haughty first-born jealously survey'd And envy marked the brow with hate and guile, In God's own image made. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...KATHMANDU GUEST HOUSE by KAREN SWENSON THE BAY FIGHT by HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL DUNS SCOTUS'S OXFORD by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE BUTTERFLY AND THE BEE by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES THE PALACE OF OMARTES by EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER-LYTTON SONGS OF THE SEA CHILDREN: 85 by BLISS CARMAN |