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 be
As from its fragrance seems to me,
A sigh must then its colour show
For that's the softest joy I know;
And sure the Rose is like a sigh,
Born just to soothe, and then—to die.