Literary Gazette, 28th June 1823, Page 411
VALEDICTORY LINES
To a Cadet on embarking for India.
Young Soldier! are not thy hopes
Light as the birds of the spring,
When their flight is amid new flowers,
Whose fragrance buoys up their wing?
Sweet will be the voice of their singing,
For awhile their flight will be gay;
But the flowers around them are falling,
And as those blossoms pass, so will they.
Yet sometimes one bird survives,
And one flower lives sweetly on,
Saved from the storm and the snare,
While the rest of their race are gone.
And such, young Soldier, I trust
Is what thy fate will be;
That the God which saved the flower and bird
Will watch in his care o'er thee!
Thou hast that which availeth thee much:
Pure prayers of the holiest love;
The sigh of thy Mother, her midnight sigh,
Cannot be unheard above.
Be thy pathway such as shall flush
The cheek of thy Father with pride;
Be thy step the first in the ranks,
Where the brave fight side by side.
Be thy sweet home-thoughts a spell
To keep thy heart as a taintless shrine,
That never the sullying love of gold
May darken a spirit like thine.
Farewell! be thy doom as bright
As the bright land where thou wilt roam;
Thy colours be hope and success,—
Thy motto be, Love and my home. —L. E. L.
