Frail plant, condemn’d to crouch beneath the storm
Of earthly ills, and shiver to the blast
That rules in this cold world
Th’ungenial atmosphere:
May thy diminutive and fragile frame
Survive the shocks of ev’ry latent pang,
And live to smile at that
Which once had startled thee!
Sweet babe! were all as innocent as thou,
Then might we deem the glorious times call’d back
When our first parents rov’d
Sinless in Eden‘s realms,
Alas! the tainted elements of earth,
That form the compact being which we call
Man, is a living mass
Of sorrow and of sin!
Yet live thou on, sweet child!—and like the brave
And dauntless sailor toss’d on lawless seas,
May’st thou thus meet the ills
That wait thy future day.
G.W.M.R.[1]
[1] Original citation: G.W.M.R. ‘To a New-Born Child’, Reynolds’s Miscellany, 1 April 1854, 12.
Categories: 19th Century, Birth, g w m reynolds, literature, poem, Poetry, To a Newborn Child