Thy kind complaints, thy boyish talk, thy merriment, my boy, Crush all that’s base within my heart, and smooth the day’s annoy; Where’er I go, if ills assail, and passion plays her part, And dark Ambition spreads her gauds before my eye and heart, And I one moment list the voice that proffers me the crown-- I think me of thy looks my boy, and bid the tempter down. Yet there will sometimes come to me a thought of sadness given, As the dark cloud streams athwart the flush that tints the sky of even, When I look at thee, and think of thee, in all thine artlessness, And think how flowery is the path which thy young foot doth press-- For I know that eye which sparkles now may suddenly be wet, And the earth which looks so lovely too may be a desert yet. Ah! yes, I tremble for my boy with fears he cannot know, Lest he take the path which I have ta’en, and find it leads to wo; I tremble lest the Circean cup may yet be given him, With roses decked and myrtles crown’d and sparkling to the brim; For O! his foot hath not yet tried the path which mine hath trod, Nor hath his young heart framed a wish he might not give to God. And yet I will not think it--no! it will not, cannot be, That fate shall ever fling its shroud of blackness over thee; Thou art too like thy mother, child,--she would not harm this breast-- And all thy days have been too like the holy and the bless’d; Thou can’st not other be to me than this, my cradle joy-- Thou wilt not grieve thy father’s heart, my smiling little boy. [1] A friend of mine thinks he has seen a poem somewhere not altogether unlike this. Whether such a poem there is I know not, nor have I, after hunting over pamphlets and periodicals, been able to find one. If the reader shall be more successful, he will please give the writer of any similar production as much praise as he chooses, and subduct the same from me. An author _ought_ to know if he is guilty of plagiarism; and though I may err, it is my opinion, that among the many who have written upon this subject, though I may not boast of as much beauty, I may at least have been as far from stealing as the best of the rhyming tribe. These are indeed days of barter--still I would live on my own capital. SIR THOMAS MORE’S WORKS. _Lib. Old Eng. Prose Writers--Vol. 9.--Boston, 1834._