To Little Jeanne

You've lived a year, then, yesterday, sweet child,Prattling thus happily! So fledglings wild,New-hatched in warmer nest 'neath sheltering bough,Chirp merrily to feel their feathers grow.Your mouth's a rose, Jeanne! In these volumes grandWhose pictures please you--while I trembling standTo see their big leaves tattered by your hand--Are noble lines; but nothing half your worth,When all your tiny frame rustles with mirthTo welcome me. No work of author wiseCan match the thought half springing to your eyes,And your dim reveries, unfettered, strange,Regarding man with all the boundless rangeOf angel innocence. Methinks, 'tis clearThat God's not far, Jeanne, when I see you here.

Ah! twelve months old: 'tis quite an age, and bringsGrave moments, though your soul to rapture clings,You're at that hour of life most like to heaven,When present joy no cares, no sorrows leavenWhen man no shadow feels: if fond caressRound parent twines, children the world possess.Your waking hopes, your dreams of mirth and loveFrom Charles to Alice, father to mother, rove;No wider range of view your heart can takeThan what her nursing and his bright smiles make;They two alone on this your opening hourCan gleams of tenderness and gladness pour:They two--none else, Jeanne! Yet 'tis just, and I,Poor grandsire, dare but to stand humbly by.You come--I go: though gloom alone my right,Blest be the destiny which gives you light.

Your fair-haired brother George and you besideMe play--in watching you is all my pride;And all I ask--by countless sorrows tried--The grave; o'er which in shadowy form may showYour cradles gilded by the morning's glow.

Pure new-born wonderer! your infant lifeStrange welcome found, Jeanne, in this time of strife.Like wild-bee humming through the woods your play,And baby smiles have dared a world at bay:Your tiny accents lisp their gentle charmsTo mighty Paris clashing mighty arms.Ah! when I see you, child, and when I hearYou sing, or try, with low voice whispering near,And touch of fingers soft, my grief to cheer,I dream this darkness, where the tempests groan,Trembles, and passes with half-uttered moan.For though these hundred towers of Paris bend,Though close as foundering ship her glory's end,Though rocks the universe, which we defend;Still to great cannon on our ramparts piled,God sends His blessing by a little child.