To a Young Mother

What things of thee may yield a semblance meet,
And him, thy fairy portraiture? a flower
And bud, moon and attending star, a sweet
Voice and its sweeter echo. Time has small power
O'er features the mind moulds; and such are thine,
Imperishably lovely. Roses, where
They once have bloom'd, a fragrance leave behind;
And harmony will linger on the wind;
And suns continue to light up the air,
When set; and music from the broken shrine
Breathes, it is said, around whose altar-stone
His flower the votary has ceased to twine: —
Types of the beauty that, when youth is gone,
Beams from the soul whose brightness mocks decline.