Thou art but in life's morning, and as yet

The world looks witchingly: its fruits and flowers

Are fair and fragrant, and its beauteous bowers

Seem haunts of happiness, before thee set,

All lovely as a landscape freshly wet

With dew, or bright with sunshine after showers;

Where pleasure dwells, and Flora's magic powers

Woo thee to pluck joy's peerless coronet.

Thus be it ever:—wouldst thou have it so,

Preserve thy present openness of heart;—

Cherish those generous feelings which now start

At base dissimulation, and that glow

Of native love for ties which home endears;

And thou wilt find the world no vale of tears.

[1818]

“Thou art but in life's morning!”— Years have sped

Their silent flight since thus my idle rhyme

Addressed thee in thy being's opening prime;

If since that hour some clouds at times have spread

Their shadow o’er thy path, these have not shed

On thee their anger; but, from time to time,

Have led thy thoughts tow’rd sunnier heights to climb;

Communing with the loved, lamented dead!

And still thou art but in the glowing morn

Of thy existence: hearts of finest mould,

And warm affections claim their right to hold

Those purer, nobler feelings with them born,

Which will not let them droop, of hope forlorn,

Nor in a few brief years be changed and cold.

[1828]