She, lately in that bower of bliss, Like a bubble, children-blown, Too generous-happy to endure The thought of all the woeful poor, Who that same night laid down their heads In misery, on starving beds, In cold, in wet, disease, despair, In madness that will say no prayer, With wailing infants some, and some And of these three fair sights of mine, That was the vision most divine. ON THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCESS ALICE Welcome, then, fair new delight! And thy sweet strong-hearted mother; That could prosper them and thee ;) What a world to rule, to please, None too rich, and none too poor. Thee, meantime, fair child of one Thee may no worse lot befall Heaven and earth both kept in view, Cowper views infancy and childhood through a dark veil: Though, clasp'd and cradled in his nurse's arms, If one, his equal in athletic frame, The little Greeks look trembling at the scales, Till the best tongue or heaviest hand prevails." These lines were prompted by remembrances of the melancholy childhood of their author, whose early birthdays came and ended in tears after the premature death of his loving and indulgent mother. He was then taken out of the nursery and sent to a public school, where his extreme sensibility and fragile health exposed him to much cruelty and ridicule among his rough unkind companions. In this situation we have an example of the power of faith in a child. He was one day sitting alone, almost ready to weep from the expectation of seeing his chief tormentor appear before him, when the words of the Psalmist came to his relief, "I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me," and inspired him with trust and confidence. This was a boy who would see vastly more in his revolving birthdays than the cake and the orange. In Grasmere churchyard, close by the grave of William Wordsworth, lies buried Hartley Coleridge, a poet, and the son of a poet. The following was written by Wordsworth: : TO HARTLEY COLERIDGE, SIX YEARS OLD. O thou, whose fancies from afar are brought; The breeze-like motion, and the self-born carol; May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Thou art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears, For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest, But when she sate within the touch of thee. O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite, Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, Or to be trail'd along the sailing earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives, But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife, Slips in a moment out of life. Of his intimate friend in boyhood and youth, afterwards Lord Chancellor Thurlow, Cowper writes thus: Round Thurlow's head in early youth, And in his sportive days, Fair science pour'd the light of truth, And genius shed its rays. |