30.03.2008, 21:28
To an Infant
Written on a snowy day
Some say, sweet babe, thy mind is but a blank,
As white and vacant as the level field
Of unsunn'd snow, that passively must yield
To human foot, to vapour dull and dank,
To wheel indenting slow, with sullen clank,
To wanton tracery of urchin wild.
I deem not so of any human child,
Nor can believe our nature ever sank
To such a lowness. Nay, my pretty boy!
In thy shrill laugh there is intelligence;
And though we can but guess, or how, or whence
Thy soul was wafted - from what realm of joy
Or mere privation thou hast hither come, -
Thought has come with thee, happy thought, though dumb.
Written on a snowy day
Some say, sweet babe, thy mind is but a blank,
As white and vacant as the level field
Of unsunn'd snow, that passively must yield
To human foot, to vapour dull and dank,
To wheel indenting slow, with sullen clank,
To wanton tracery of urchin wild.
I deem not so of any human child,
Nor can believe our nature ever sank
To such a lowness. Nay, my pretty boy!
In thy shrill laugh there is intelligence;
And though we can but guess, or how, or whence
Thy soul was wafted - from what realm of joy
Or mere privation thou hast hither come, -
Thought has come with thee, happy thought, though dumb.