Crying they creep among us like young cats.
Cares and continual crosses keeping with them,
They make time old to tend them, and experience
An ass, they alter so; they grow and goodly
Ere we can turn our thoughts, like drops of water
They fall into the main, are known no more.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Mad Lover.
What benefit can children be
But charges and disobedience? what's the
Love they render at one and twenty years?
I pray die, father: when they are young, they
Are like bells rung backwards, nothing but noise
And giddiness.
Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money. Look here and weep with tenderness and transport! What is all tasteless luxury to this?
To these best joys, which holy love bestows?
Oh nature, parent nature, thou alone
Art the true judge of what can make us happy.
Thomson's Agamemnon.
O what passions then,
What melting sentiments of kindly care, On the new parents scize.
The hour arrives, the moment wish'd and fear'd⚫
The child is born by many a pang endear'd,
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry;
O grant the cherub to her asking eye!
He comes-she clasps him. To her bosom press'd
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.
Rogers's Human Life.
When heaven and angels, earth and carthly things
Do leave the guilty in their guiltiness-
A cherub's voice doth whisper in a child's
There is a shrine within thy little heart
Where I will hide, nor hear the trump of doom.
Maturin's Bertram.
Thou art my daughter-never lov'd as now-
Thou mountain maid,—thou child of liberty!
Urilda! well from Uri's height I nam'd thee,
Free as its breezes,-purer than its snows!
Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy—
Thomson's Seasons."Sleep, image of thy father, sleep my boy:
Meantime a smiling offspring rises round,
And mingles both their graces. By degrees,
The human blossom blows; and every day,
Soft as it rolls along, shows some new charm,
The father's lustre, and the mother's bloom.
Thomson's Seasons.
Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast!
Thomson's Seasons.
Thanks to the gods, my boy has done his duty!
-Portius, when I am dead, be sure you place
His urn near mine.
Self-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine chcer, and streamers
We cut our cable, launch into the world,
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend.
Young's Night Thoughts.
Why was my prayer accepted? why did heav'n
In anger hear me, when I ask'd a son?
Hannah More's Moses. Then gathering round his bed, they climb to share
His kisses, and with gentle violence there,
Break in upon a dream not half so fair.
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire, the sun shall be,
In form and soul; but ah! more bless'd than he.
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love, at last,
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past,
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away."
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.
He smiles and sleeps!-sleep on
And smile, thou little young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on and smile!
Thine are the hours and days when both are
cheering
And innocent.