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| HOW calm is Innocence!—Its glow | |
| Is resting on that cheek’s bright hue, | |
| That forehead fair of stainless snow, | |
| And that full eye of cloudless blue, | |
| Like morning on some sleeping sea, | 5 |
| Or hope on dreams of ecstacy. | |
| |
| So full and clear its rising beams | |
| Through that soft veil of Beauty shine, | |
| A pictured soul the vision seems | |
| In purity and peace divine; | 10 |
| And thoughts sink lovelier there to rest, | |
| Like day-beams on the rainbow’s breast. | |
| |
| Thine is the smile, whose splendors pour | |
| O’er all those lineaments their dyes, | |
| And tell how deep the boundless store | 15 |
| Of treasured joys from whence they rise | |
| As the blue tints of ocean show | |
| How deep its bosom heaves below. | |
| |
| The rays, which palace in the sky, | |
| Or gild the glittering gems of night, | 20 |
| Are wandering in that clear full eye, | |
| Or lingering on that living light, | |
| As if from heaven they came to bear | |
| Those thoughts like holy treasures there. | |
| |
| Yet on those features’ purple light, | 25 |
| That look of peace, that soul of love, | |
| There is a charm far, far more bright, | |
| A soft reflection from above, | |
| Come down from its own sphere to bless | |
| That form with deeper loveliness. | 30 |
| |
| Like some celestial dream, its glow, | |
| Of heaven is on that sainted air, | |
| Soft-mingling with the silent flow | |
| Of holy thought, which rises there; | |
| ’T is God’s own spirit’s blessed ray, | 35 |
| The dawnings of eternal day. | |
| |
| Oh lives there one cold breast can view | |
| That wealth of charms, the unconscious light | |
| Of that full soul, whose thoughts beam through, | |
| And heavenward take their viewless flight, | 40 |
| Yet give one wish a fleeting birth | |
| On this world’s pride, the toys of earth! | |
| |
| Thou art to me the loveliest glow, | |
| That mantles o’er life’s chequered sky, | |
| A living spring whose stream shall flow | 45 |
| Along the track of years gone by, | |
| And with far murmurings deep and clear, | |
| Make music still on memory’s ear. | |
| |
| Farewell—I go to foreign skies, | |
| To distant lands, to scenes afar, | 50 |
| Yet there, that one dear form shall rise | |
| Unfading as the morning star, | |
| And smile upon that desert still, | |
| The same as on my native hill. | |
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