Childhood

Oh what a wilderness were this sad world
If man were always man, and never child :
If Nature gave no time, so sweetly wild,
When every thought is quaintly crisp'd and curl'd.
Like fragrant hyacinth with dew impearl'd,
And every feeling in itself confiding,
Yet never single, but continuous, gliding
With wavy motion as, on wings unfurl'd,
A seraph clips the Empyreal ! Such man was
Ere sin had made him know himself too well.
No child was born ere that primeval loss.
What might have been, no living soul can tell :
But Heaven is kind, and therefore all possess
Once in their life fair Eden's simpleness.