Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/350

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290

XX.

ADDRESS

TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER,

On being reminded, that she was a Month old, on that Day.



———Hast thou then survived,
Mild Offspring of infirm humanity,
Meek Infant! among all forlornest things
The most forlorn, one life of that bright Star,
The second glory of the heavens?—Thou hast;
Already hast survived that great decay;
That transformation through the wide earth felt,
And by all nations. In that Being's sight
From whom the Race of human kind proceed,
A thousand years are but as yesterday;
And one day's narrow circuit is to him
Not less capacious than a thousand years.
But what is time? What outward glory? neither
A measure is of Thee, whose claims extend
Through "heaven's eternal year."—Yet hail to Thee,