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(From On the Receipt of My Mother’s Picture)
WHERE once we dwelt our name is heard no more, | |
| Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; | |
| And where the gardener Robin, day by day, | |
| Drew me to school along the public way, | |
| Delighted with my bawble coach, and wrapt | 5 |
| In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capt, | |
| ’T is now become a history little known, | |
| That once we called the pastoral house our own. | |
| Short-lived possession! but the record fair | |
| That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, | 10 |
| Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced | |
| A thousand other themes less deeply traced. | |
| Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, | |
| That thou might’st know me safe and warmly laid; | |
| Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, | 15 |
| The biscuit, or confectionery plum; | |
| The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed | |
| By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed: | |
| All this, and more endearing still than all, | |
| Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall, | 20 |
| Ne’er roughened by those cataracts and breaks | |
| That humor interposed too often makes; | |
| All this still legible in memory’s page, | |
| And still to be so to my latest age, | |
| Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay | 25 |
| Such honors to thee as my numbers may; | |
| Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, | |
| Not scorned in Heaven, though little noticed here. | |
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