from The Bijou Literary Annual, 1828
author: By B.C. [pseud. for Bryan Walker Procter]
source date: 1828
edition published: 20170606
availability: Freely available via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser
William Pickering London
1828
p. 32

To My Child

By B.C. [pseud. for Bryan Walker Procter]

CHILD of my heart! My sweet, belov'd first-bórn!
Thou dove, who tidings bring'st of calmer hours!
Thou rainbow, who dost come when all the showers
Are past, — or passing! Rose which hath no thorn, —
No pain, no blemish, — pure and unforlorn,
Untouched — untainted — O, my flower of flowers!
More welcome than to bees are summer bowers, —
To seamen stranded life-assuring morn.
Welcome! a thousand welcomes! Care, who clings
Round all, seems loosening now her snake-like fold!
New hope springs upwards, and the bright world seems
Cast back into her youth of endless springs! —
— Sweet mother, is it so? — or grow I old,
Bewildered in divine Elysian dreams?