| |
| UPON this anniversaree, | |
| My little godchild, aged three, | |
| My compliments I make to thee, | |
| Quite heedless. | |
| And that you ’ll throw them now away, | 5 |
| But treasure them some future day, | |
| Are platitudes, the which to say | |
| Is needless. | |
| |
| You small, stout damsel, muckle mou’d, | |
| With cropped tow-head and manners rude, | 10 |
| And stormy spirit unsubdued | |
| By nurses, | |
| Where you were raised was it in vogue | |
| To lisp that Tipperary brogue? | |
| Oh, you ’re a subject sweet, you rogue, | 15 |
| For verses! | |
| |
| Last Sunday morning when we stayed | |
| At home you got yourself arrayed | |
| In Lyman’s clothes and turned from maid | |
| To urchin. | 20 |
| And when we all laughed at you so, | |
| You eyed outside the falling snow, | |
| And thought your rig quite fit to go | |
| To church in. | |
| |
| Play on, play on, dear little lass! | 25 |
| Play on till sixteen summers pass, | |
| And then I’ll bring a looking-glass, | |
| And there be- | |
| Fore you on your lips I’ll show | |
| The curves of small Dan Cupid’s bow, | 30 |
| And then the crop that now is “tow” | |
| Shall “fair” be. | |
| |
| And then I’ll show you, too, the charms | |
| Of small firm hands and rounded arms, | |
| And eyes whose flashes send alarms | 35 |
| Right through you; | |
| And then a half-regretful sigh | |
| May break from me to think that I, | |
| At forty years, can never try, | |
| To woo you. | 40 |
| |
| What shall I wish you? Free from ruth, | |
| To live and learn in love and truth, | |
| Through childhood’s day and days of youth, | |
| And school’s day. | |
| For all the days that intervene | 45 |
| ’Twixt Mab at three and at nineteen, | |
| Are but one sombre or serene | |
| All Fool’s Day. | |
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