| To Sylvia |
| Two Years Old |
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Long life to thee, long virtue, long delight,
A flowering early and late!
Long beauty, grave to thought and gay to sight,
A distant date!
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Yet, as so many poets love to sing
(When young the child will die),
“No autumn will destroy this lovely spring,”
So, Sylvia, I.
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I’ll write thee dapper verse and touching rhyme;
“Our eyes shall not behold—”
The commonplace shall serve for thee this time:
“Never grow old.”
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For there’s another way to stop thy clock
Within my cherishing heart,
To carry thee unalterable, and lock
Thy youth apart:
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Thy flower, for me, shall evermore be hid
In this close bud of thine,
Not, Sylvia, by thy death—O God forbid!
Merely by mine.
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