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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Child Of The Islands - Conclusion</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">MY lay is ended! closed the circling year, <br>From Spring's first dawn to Winter's darkling night; <br>The moan of sorrow, and the sigh of fear, <br>The ringing chords of triumph and delight <br>Have died away,--oh, child of beauty bright,-- <br>And all unconscious of my song art thou: <br>With large blue eyes of Majesty and might, <br>And red full lips, and fair capacious brow, <br>No Leader of the World,--but Life's Beginner, now! <br>II.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, tender human blossom, thou art fair, <br>With such a beauty as the eye perceives <br>Watching a bud of promise rich and rare <br>In the home-shadow of surrounding leaves. <br>THOUGHT, the great Dream-bringer, who joys and grieves <br>Over the visions of her own creating, <br>Resting by Thee, a sigh of pleasure heaves; <br>The fever of her rapid flight abating <br>Amid the golden hopes around thy cradle waiting. <br>III.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thou--thou, at least, art happy! For thy sake <br>Heaven speaks reversal of the doom of pain, <br>Set on our Nature when the Demon-Snake <br>Hissed the first lie, a woman's ear to gain, <br>And Eden was lamented for in vain! <br>THOU art not meant, like other men, to thirst <br>For benefits no effort can attain: <br>To struggle on, by Hope's deceiving nurst, <br>And linger still the last, where thou wouldst fain be first. <br>IV.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The royal canopy above thy head <br>Shall charm away the griefs that others know:-- <br>Oh! mocking dream! Thy feet Life's path must tread: <br>The Just God made not Happiness to grow <br>Out of condition: fair the field-flowers blow, <br>Fair as the richer flowers of garden ground; <br>And far more equally are joy and woe <br>Divided,--than they dream, who, gazing round, <br>See but that narrow plot, their own life's selfish bound. <br>V.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">True,--in thy Childhood's Spring thou shalt not taste <br>The bitter toil of factory or mine: <br>Nor the Strong Summer of thy manhood waste <br>In labour vain, and want that bids thee pine: <br>The mellow Autumn of thy calm decline-- <br>The sheltered Winter of thy happy Age-- <br>Shall see home-faces still around thee shine-- <br>No Workhouse threatening, where the heart's sick rage <br>Mopes like a prisoned bird within a cheerless cage. <br>VI.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">True, that, instead of all this weary grief, <br>This cutting off what joy our life affords, <br>This endless pining for denied relief, <br>All Luxury shall hail thee! music's chords <br>Shall woo thee,--and sweet utterance of words <br>In Minstrel singing: Painting shall beguile <br>Thine eye with mimic battles, dark with swords,-- <br>Green sylvan landscapes,--beauty's imaged smile,-- <br>And books thy leisure hours from worldly cares shall wile. <br>VII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There ends the sum of thy Life's holiday! <br>WANT shall not enter near thee,--PLEASURE shall: <br>But Pomp hath wailed when Poverty looked gay, <br>And SORROW claims an equal tax from all: <br>Tears have been known from Royal eyes to fall <br>When harvest-trudging clowns went singing by: <br>Sobs have woke echoes in the gilded hall: <br>And, by that pledge of thine Equality, <br>Men hail thee BROTHER still, though thou art set so high. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VIII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">DEATH, too, who heeds not poorer men's regret, <br>Neither is subject to the will of Kings; <br>All Thrones, all Empires of the Earth are set <br>Under the vaulted shadow of his wings: <br>He blights our Summers, chills our fairest springs, <br>Nips the fresh bloom of some uncertain flower, <br>Yea, where the fragile tendril closest clings, <br>There doth his gaunt hand pluck, with sudden power, <br>Leaving green burial-mounds, where stood Affection's bower. <br>IX.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Where is young Orleans? that fair Prince of France, <br>Who 'scaped a thousand threatening destinies <br>Only to perish by a vulgar chance? <br>Lost is the light of the most lovely eyes <br>That ever imaged back the summer skies! <br>Widowed the hapless Wife, who seeks to train <br>Childhood's frail thread of broken memories, <br>So that her Orphan may at least retain <br>The haunting shadow of a Father's face,--in vain! <br>X.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh! Summer flowers, which happy children cull, <br>How were ye stained that year by bitter weeping, <br>When he, the stately and the beautiful, <br>Wrapped in his dismal shroud lay coldly sleeping! <br>The warm breeze through the rustling woods went creeping, <br>The birds with gladdening notes sang overhead: <br>The peasant groups went laughing to their reaping, <br>But, in the gorgeous Palace, rose instead, <br>Sobs,--and lamenting Hymns,--and Masses for the Dead! <br>XI.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Where, too, is She, the loved and lately wived, <br>The fair-haired Daughter of an Emperor, <br>Born in the time of roses, and who lived <br>A rose's life; one Spring, one Summer more, <br>Dating from Girlhood's blushing days of yore,-- <br>Fading in Autumn,--lost in Winter's gloom,-- <br>And with the opening year beheld no more? <br>She and her babe lie buried in the tomb, <br>The green bud on the stem,--both withered in the bloom! <br>XII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then, RUSSIA wept! Then, bowing to the dust <br>That brow whereon proud Majesty and Grace <br>Are chiselled as in some ideal bust,-- <br>All vain appeared his power, his realm's wide space, <br>And the high blood of his imperial race! <br>He sank,--a grieving man,--a helpless Sire,-- <br>Who could not call back to a pale sweet face <br>By might of rule, or Love's intense desire, <br>The light that quivering sank, in darkness to expire. <br>XII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Where is the angel sent as Belgium's heir? <br>Renewing hopes so linked with bitter fears, <br>When our own Charlotte perished young and fair,-- <br>The former love of long departed years! <br>That little One is gone from earth's cold tears <br>To smile in Heaven's clear sunshine with the Blest, <br>And in his stead another bud appears. <br>But when his gentle head was laid to rest, <br>Came there not boding dreams to sting his Father's breast? <br>XIV.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Of Claremont? of that dark December night, <br>When, pale with weary vigils vainly kept,-- <br>Crushed by the destiny that looked so bright,-- <br>Dark-browed and beautiful, he stood and wept <br>By one who heard him not, but dumbly slept! <br>By one who loved him so, that evermore <br>Her young heart with a fervent welcome leapt <br>To greet his presence! But those pangs are o'er, <br>And Heaven in mercy keeps more smiling days in store. <br>XV.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">God hath built up a bridge 'twixt man and man, <br>Which mortal strength can never overthrow; <br>Over the world it stretches its dark span,-- <br>The keystone of that mighty arch is WOE! <br>Joy's rainbow glories visit earth, and go, <br>Melting away to Heaven's far-distant land; <br>But Grief's foundations have been fixed below: <br>PLEASURE divides us:--the Divine command <br>Hath made of SORROW'S links a firm connecting band. <br>XVI.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In the clear morning, when I rose from sleep, <br>And left my threshold for the fresh'ning breeze, <br>There I beheld a grieving woman weep; <br>The shadow of a child was on her knees, <br>The worn heir of her many miseries: <br>'Save him!' was written in her suppliant glance: <br>But I was weaker than its fell disease, <br>And ere towards noon the Dial could advance <br>Death indeed saved her babe from Life's most desperate chance. <br>XVII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The sunset of that day,--in splendid halls-- <br>Mourning a little child of Ducal race<br>(How fair the picture Memory recalls!) <br>I saw the sweetest and the palest face <br>That ever wore the stamp of Beauty's grace, <br>Bowed like a white rose beat by storms and rain, <br>And on her countenance my eyes could trace, <br>And on her soft cheek, marked with tearful stain, <br>That she had prayed through many a midnight watch in vain. <br>XVIII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In both those different homes the babe was dead: <br>Life's early morning closed in sudden night: <br>In both, the bitter tears were freely shed, <br>Lips pressed on lids for ever closed from light, <br>And prayers sobbed forth to God the Infinite. <br>From both, the little one was borne away <br>And buried in the earth with solemn rite. <br>One, in a mound where no stone marked the clay, <br>One, in a vaulted tomb, with funeral array. <br>XIX.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">It was the last distinction of their lot! <br>The same dull earth received their mortal mould: <br>The same high consecration marked the spot <br>A Christian burying-place, for young and old: <br>The same clear stars shone out all calmly cold <br>When on those graves the sunset hour grew dim: <br>And the same God in glory they behold,-- <br>For Life's diverging roads all lead to Him <br>Who sits enthroned in light among the Cherubim! <br>XX.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">None could revoke the weeping Beggar's loss,-- <br>None could restore that lovely Lady's child,-- <br>Else untold sums had been accounted dross <br>To buy, for one, the life that moved and smiled: <br>Else had my heart, by false regret beguiled, <br>Recalled the other from his blest abode: <br>One only power was left by Mercy mild, <br>Leave to give alms,--which gladly I bestowed <br>Where the lone tears had fall'n, half freezing while they flowed. <br>XXI.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Beautiful Royal Child, that art to me <br>Only the sculptured image of a thought: <br>A type of this world's rank and luxury <br>Through whom the Poet's lesson may be taught: <br>The deeds which are by this world's mercy wrought, <br>Lie in the compass of a narrow bound; <br>Our Life's ability,--which is as nought,-- <br>Our Life's duration,--which is but a sound,-- <br>And then an echo, heard still faintly lingering round! <br>XXII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The sound being sweet, the echo follows it; <br>And noble deeds should hallow noble names: <br>The very Ancestry that points a right <br>To all the old hereditary claims, <br>With a true moral worldly triumph tames. <br>What vanity Earth's riches to amass,-- <br>What folly to incur its thousand shames,-- <br>When bubble generations rise and pass, <br>So swiftly, by the sand in Time's returning glass! <br>XXIII.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=353994" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Pilgrims that journey for a certain time-- <br>Weak Birds of Passage crossing stormy seas <br>To reach a better and a brighter clime-- <br>We find our parallels and types in these! <br>Meanwhile since Death, and Sorrow, and Disease, <br>Bid helpless hearts a barren pity feel; <br>Why, to the POOR, should checked compassion freeze? <br>BROTHERS, be gentle to that ONE appeal,-- <br>WANT is the only woe God gives you power to heal!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Caroline+Elizabeth+Sarah+Norton">Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton</a></strong></div>