Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ODE OF CHILDHOOD: 2. GIRLHOOD, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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THE ODE OF CHILDHOOD: 2. GIRLHOOD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Or in another channel still more sweet
Last Line: Of an enchanted clime.
Subject(s): Girls


Or in another channel still more sweet,
Life's current flows along,
Ere yet the tide of passion, full and strong,
Hurries the maiden's feet.
Oh, sweet and early girlish years
Of innocent hopes and fears!
Busied with fancies bright and gay,
Which Love shall chase away,
When, with the flutter of celestial wings,
He stirs the soul forth from its depths, and brings
Healing from trouble. Oh, deep well
Of fairy fancies undefiled!
Oh, sweet and innocent child!

Now with thy doll I see thee full of care,
Or filled already with the mother's air,
Hushing thy child to sleep.
And now thyself immersed in slumbers, deep
Yet light, I see thee lie.
And now the singer, lifting a clear voice
In soaring hymns or carols that rejoice,
Or busied with thy seam, or doubly fair
For the unconscious rapture of thy look
Lost in some simple book.
Whate'er the colour of thy face,
Thou art fulfilled with grace.
Oh, little maiden, fair or brown!
Thine is the simple beauty which doth crown
The dreams of happy fathers, who have past
By Love and Passion, and have come
To know pure joys of home;
And for the hurry and haste of younger years,
Have taken the hearth that cheers,
And the fair realm of duty, and delight
Of innocent faces bright
And the sweet wells of deep untroubled love
A daughter's name can move.

In every clime and age I see thee still,
Since the rude nomads wandered forth at will
Upon the unbounded Aryan pastures wild --
There thou wert, oh, fair child!
"The milker" 'twas they called thee; all day long
Tending the browsing herds with high-voiced song;
Or on some sun-warmed place
Upon the flower-faced grass,
Watching the old clouds pass,
And weaving wreaths with such wild grace
And sprightly girlish glee
As Proserpine did once in sunny Sicily.

Or maybe by some widowed hearth --
The fairest, saddest sight on earth,
Filled too soon with sweet care,
And bringing back the voice and air
Of thy dead mother; thou art set
An innocent virgin-mother, childlike yet.
Thy baby sisters on thy loving arm
Sleep fast, secure from harm.
Thou hast no time for game or toy,
Or other thought but this;
Finding thy full reward, thy chiefest joy,
In thy fond father's kiss.

Or under palms to-day,
Thy childhood fleets away;
Or by the broadening shadow hid,
Of tomb or pyramid;
In stainless whiteness: or maybe
Forlorn in haunts of misery;
Thou keepest on thy rounded face
Some unforgotten trace
Of the old primal days unsung,
Of the fresh breezes of pure morn
When the first maiden child was born,
And Time was young.

Fair streams which run as yet
Each in its separate channel from the snows;
Boyhood and girlhood; while Life's banks are set
With blooms that kiss the clear lymph as it flows,
One swift and strong and deep,
One where the lilies sleep; --
Fair streams, which soon some stress of Life and Time
Shall bring together,
Under new magical skies and the strange weather
Of an enchanted clime.





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