Thou hast fore-knowledge that such task is thine; Thou travellest so contentedly, and sleep'st In such a heedless peace. Alas! full soon 60 Hath this conception, grateful to behold, Changed countenance, like an object sullied o'er By breathing mist; and thine appears to be A mournful labour, while to her is given Hope, and a renovation without end. 65 --That smile forbids the thought; for on thy face Smiles are beginning, like the beams of dawn, To shoot and circulate; smiles have there been seen; Tranquil assurances that Heaven supports The feeble motions of thy life, and cheers 70 Thy loneliness: or shall those smiles be called Feelers of love, put forth as if to explore This untried world, and to prepare thy way Through a strait passage intricate and dim? Such are they; and the same are tokens, signs, 75 Which, when the appointed season hath arrived, Joy, as her holiest language, shall adopt; And Reason's godlike Power be proud to own. * * * * * FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT [Footnote A: The title from 1815 to 1845 was 'Address to my Infant Daughter, on being reminded that she was a Month old, on that Day'. After her death in 1847, her name was added to the title.--Ed.] [Footnote B: See Dryden's poem, 'To the pious memory of the accomplished young lady, Mrs. Anne Killigrew', I. l. 15.--Ed.] The text of this poem was never altered.--Ed. * * * * * THE KITTEN AND FALLING LEAVES [A] Composed 1804.--Published 1807 [Seen at Town-end, Grasmere. The elder-bush has long since disappeared; it hung over the wall near the cottage: and the kitten continued to leap up, catching the leaves as here described. The Infant was Dora.--J. F.] One of the "Poems of the Fancy." In Henry Crabb Robinson's 'Diary, etc.', under date Sept. 10, 1816, we find, "He" (Wordsworth) "quoted from 'The Kitten and the Falling Leaves' to show he had connected even the kitten with the great, awful, and mysterious powers of Nature." Ed.