Amor Mundanus. Poem by Henry Alford

Freed from the womb, and from the bounds
With which the stepdame infancy
Our days of pupilage surrounds,
We spring up beautiful and free;
Divine in form, divine in grace,
All wonderful to those who look
Upon the heavenly--printed face,
In which, as in a living book,
The characters of high descent
Are seen with air and motion blent.

Behold the curious Babe exploring
The furniture of its new earth;
And Time with ministrant hand restoring
The bloom and strength it lost in birth;
It is as though some magic power
Had shut the senses of a Bride,
And in strange air from hour to hour
She breathed away the summer--tide,
And woke and found herself alone,
And all her sweet fore--castings gone.

It is as though she should not wear
The weeds of sober widowhood,
But just to memory give a tear,
Then rise with stirring hope renewed;
And ere the period of the Sun,
In joyful garments habited,
Leaning upon another One
Should walk the flowery path to wed;
And build among new children's eyes
A home of rooted sympathies.

Child--that dost evermore desire
For something thou canst call thine own;
In summer--sun, by winter--fire,
Jealously bent to rule alone;
Thou gatherest round the plenteous store
Wherewith to sate thy longing sight;
Thou ever hast, and wishest more,
And so thou schoolest thy delight
To drink at every little stream,
And bask in every daily beam.

And when thy limbs are proud and strong,
Thou seekest out a home to last,
Among the dainties that belong
To the strange shore where thou art cast;
For kisses and kind words bestowed
Thou quittest hope, and all content
Thou takest up thy calm abode
In the country of thy banishment;
Careless of tidings that relate
To winning back thy lost estate.