GERALDINE.

This simple child has claims

On your sentiment — her name's

Geraldine.

Be tender — but beware,

For she's frolicsome as fair,

And fifteen.

She has gifts that have not cloyed,

For these gifts she has employed,

And improved:

She has bliss which lives and leans

Upon loving — and that means

She is loved.

She has grace. A grace refined

By sweet harmony of mind:

And the Art,

And the blessed Nature, too,

Of a tender, and a true

Little heart.

And yet I must not vault

Over any little fault

That she owns:

Or others might rebel,

And might enviously swell

In their zones.

She is tricksy as the fays,

Or her pussy when it plays

With a string:

She's a goose about her cat,

And her ribbons — and all that

Sort of thing.

These foibles are a blot,

Still she never can do what

Is not nice,

Such as quarrel, and give slaps —

As I've known her get, perhaps,

Once or twice.

The spells that move her soul

Are subtle — sad or droll —

She can show

That virtuoso whim

Which consecrates our dim

Long-ago.

A love that is not sham

For Stothard, Blake, and Lamb;

And I've known

Cordelia's sad eyes

Cause angel-tears to rise

In her own.

Her gentle spirit yearns

When she reads of Robin Burns —

Luckless Bard!

Had she blossomed in thy time,

How rare had been the rhyme

— And reward!

Thrice happy then is he

Who, planting such a Tree,

Sees it bloom

To shelter him — indeed

We have sorrow as we speed

To our doom!

I am happy having grown

Such a Sapling of my own;

And I crave

No garland for my brows,

But peace beneath its boughs

Till the grave.