Zinzendorff and Other Poems/Birth-day Verses to a Little Girl
BIRTH-DAY VERSES TO A LITTLE GIRL.
I do bethink me of a feeble babe,
To whom the gift of life did seem a toil
It trembled to take up, and of the care
That tireless nurtur'd her by night and day,
When it would seem as if the fainting breath
Must leave her bosom, and her fair blue eye
Sank 'neath its lids, like some crushed violet.
—Six winters came, and now that self-same babe
Wins with her needle, the appointed length
Of her light task, and learns with patient zeal
The daily lesson, tracing on her map
All climes and regions of the peopled earth.
With tiny hand, she guides the writer's quill,
To grave those lines through which the soul doth speak,
And pours in timid tones, the hymn at eve.
She from the pictur'd page, doth scan the tribes
That revel in the air, or cleave the flood,
Or roam the wild, delighting much to know
Their various natures, and their habits all,
From the huge elephant, to the small fly
That liveth but a day, yet in that day
Is happy, and outspreads a shining wing,
Exulting in the mighty Maker's care.
She weeps that man should barb the monarch-whale,
In his wild ocean-home, and wound the dove,
And snare the pigeon, hasting to its nest
To feed its young, and hunt the flying deer,
And find a pleasure in the pain he gives.
She tells the sweetly modulated tale
To her young brother, and devoutly cheers
At early morning, seated on his knee
Her hoary grandsire from the Book of God,
Who meekly happy in his fourscore years,
Mourns not the dimness gathering o'er his sight,
But with a saintly kindness, bows him down
To drink from her young lip, the lore he loves.
Fond, gentle child, who like a flower that hastes
To burst its sheath, hath come so quickly forth,
A sweet companion, walking by my side,—
Thou, whom thy father loveth, and thy friends
Delight to praise, lift thy young heart to God,—
That whatsoe'er doth please him in thy life
He may perfect, and by his Spirit's power
Remove each germ of evil, that thy soul
When this brief discipline of time is o'er
May rise to praise him with an angel's song.