He would not know his child!
It was an infant smiled,
Unconscious of his sorrowful caressing;
From the red lip was heard
No small familiar word;
Now, the fair boy can ask his father’s blessing.
The mother wears no more
The smile and blush she wore
In the glad days when they were last together:
Her brow is wan with fears;
Her eyes are dim with tears;
Her cheek has changed with every change of weather.
Alas! her love has grown
Too anxious, and too prone
To trouble with its passionate emotion!
Upon her dreams at night,
Come visions of affright—
All the tumultuous perils of the ocean.
When these dark thoughts prevail,
What hope can then avail,
But that which riseth amid prayer to heaven?
Upon the gloomy hour,
Like thy soft breath, sweet flower,
Whose odours[1] are alone to midnight given.
- ↑ Landon's original spelling, odors in the American version
