Misc - Sligo Poets

          Sligo Champion
           8 April 1916

*Appreciation of a Child’s Love

(A child once climbed the writer’s knees and looking earnestly into his face uttered the very endearing words I love you! Trifling though the little incident may appear, it affected him very much. He became deeply moved, and his mind filled with serious thoughts which soon found expression in the following verses.)

How sweet those words from lips so fair;
    A love, fond love, for you I bear:—
Such are the words to me confess’d
    By one in infant robes and dress—
A child, a lovely child, is she
    Who so declared her love for me.

A wretched heart, debased and vile,
    Were mine, if sounds so free of guile
As summer’s zephyrs’ gentle sigh
    When singing brooklets passing by—
Uttered from lips so chaste, so sweet
    No fond responsive tones should meet.

But oh! dear child, what gift of mine
    Would be return for love like thine?
Love pure as is the primal flow
    Of mountain springs before they grow
To mighty rivers, when their forces
    Sweep foul deposits in their course.

Like Autumn morn’s resplendent rays
    Is that sweet light which round thee plays;
But like the clouds that float at noon
    Across the sky, and dim so soon
Its glorious light, like such would prove
    On thy fair life my sullied love.

Within this bosom’s surging main
    There’s nought that I can feel or feign
For thy pure love a meet return—
    As passions there so wildly burn
That its affection ne’er can be
    Worthy the love of infancy.

And yet, sweet child, while I still hear
    Thy loving words sound in my ear
I feel beyond expression blest
    To have a heart so pure possess’d—
Still fail to find in what fit way
    Thy fond first love I can repay.

I have nor gold nor prec’ous things.
    No jewels rare, no costly rings
Can I buy for thee should I deem
    Such gifts would bring thee fair esteem;
But no! the things that fleet or fade
    As gifts for love were never made.

O! for the Muse’s power sublime
    T’ immortalize thee and the time
Thy infant heart first warbled love
    Sweet as the cooing of the dove; —
Did such great power to me belong
    Thou would’st be e’er enshrined in song.

But these crude verses for thy sake
    Are all my rustic muse can make;
Yet I should be well satisfied
    Should they bring back with mem’ry’s tide
When thy sweet dreams of youth are o’er
    Thoughts of the love thy heart first bore.

Or that when scanning each rough line
    With solemn thought in life’s decline,
Thou would’st in pity think of him,
    Who then may lie, cold, silent, dim
In the dark tomb, at rest for e’er,
    And chant for him a heartfelt prayer!

*It is possible that some reader of the CHAMPION may have known the little heroine, to whom was given a printed copy of the poem; and perhaps would be kind enough to send her (as she went to the land of the Stars and Stripes), a copy of the paper in which it appears to-day, after a period of thirty years.