Geraldine

This simple child has claims
On your sentiment--her name's
Geraldine.
Be tender--but beware,
For she's frolicsome as fair,
And fifteen.

She has gifts that have not cloyed,
For these gifts she has employed,
And improved:
She has bliss which lives and leans
Upon loving--and that means
She is loved.

She has grace. A grace refined
By sweet harmony of mind:
And the Art,
And the blessed Nature, too,
Of a tender, and a true
Little heart.

And yet I must not vault
Over any little fault
That she owns:
Or others might rebel,
And might enviously swell
In their zones.

She is tricksy as the fays,
Or her pussy when it plays
With a string:
She's a goose about her cat,
And her ribbons--and all that
Sort of thing.

These foibles are a blot,
Still she never can do what
Is not nice,
Such as quarrel, and give slaps--
As I've known her get, perhaps,
Once or twice.

The spells that move her soul
Are subtle--sad or droll--
She can show
That virtuoso whim
Which consecrates our dim
Long-ago.

A love that is not sham
For Stothard, Blake, and Lamb;
And I've known
Cordelia's sad eyes
Cause angel-tears to rise
In her own.

Her gentle spirit yearns
When she reads of Robin Burns--
Luckless Bard!
Had she blossomed in thy time,
How rare had been the rhyme
--And reward!

Thrice happy then is he
Who, planting such a Tree,
Sees it bloom
To shelter him--indeed
We have sorrow as we speed
To our doom!

I am happy having grown
Such a Sapling of my own;
And I crave
No garland for my brows,
But peace beneath its boughs
Till the grave.