The Child and Dove

Thou art a thing on our dreams to rise,
Midst the echoes of long-lost melodies,
And to fling bright dew from the morning back,
Fair form! on each image of childhood’s track.

Thou art a thing to recall the hours
When the love of our souls was on leaves and flowers,
When a world was our own in some dim sweet grove,
And treasure untold in one captive dove.

Are they gone? can we think it, while thou art there,
Thou joyous child with the clustering hair?
Is it not spring that indeed breathes free
And fresh o’er each thought, while we gaze on thee?

No! never more may we smile as thou
Sheddest round smiles from thy sunny brow;
Yet something it is, in our hearts to shrine
A memory of beauty undimm’d as thine--

To have met the joy of thy speaking face,
To have felt the spell of thy breezy grace,
To have linger’d before thee, and turn’d, and borne
One vision away of the cloudless morn.