Verses Sent To Mrs. Baillie On Her Birthday, 1813 Poem by Joanna Baillie

A JUDGEMENT clear, a pensive mind
With feelings tender and refined;
A generous heart in kindness glowing,
An open hand on all bestowing;
A temper sweet, and calm, and even
Through petty provocations given;
A soul benign, whose cheerful leisure
Considers still of others' pleasure,
Or, in its lonely, graver mood,
Considers still of others' good;
And joined to these the visioned eye,
And tuneful ear of poesy;
Blest wight, in whom those gifts combine,
Our dear Sophia, sister mine!
How comes it that, from year to year,
This day hath passed without its cheer,--
No token passing time to trace,
No rhymester's lay to do it grace?
Love was not wanting, but the muse,
Reserved, unpliant, and recluse,
Sat in her unreal kingdom, dreaming
Through baseless scenes of airy seeming,
And could not turn her 'wildered eye
On plain, unfancied verity.
Yet be it so! once in my life
I'll hold with her a generous strife;
With or without her aid, my lay
Shall hail with grateful lines this happy day.
The day when first thy infant heart
Did from inactive being start,
And in thy baby bosom beat,
Its doubtful, dangerous, fragile seat,--
A heavenly spark that downward came
To mount again a brighter flame.
Meantime, a warm and fostering blessing,
More precious felt in long possessing,
'Tis lent to those who daily prove
Its gentle offices of love.
Ah! for their sake, long be the date
Of this its more ignoble state!
I who, so near its influence set,
Owe it a long and pleasing debt,
In course of nature launched before
From mortal nature's foggy shore,
Would fain behind me leave some token
Of friendly kindred love unbroken,
Which in some hour, retired and lone,
Thine eyes may sometimes look upon,
While in thy saddened tender breast
Ah, no! I may not think the rest,
Lest, both bereft of words and strain
My silent thoughts alone remain:
This token then do thou receive.
I will not tell thee to believe
How in my heart its spirit glows,
How soothly from my pen it flows.
Through years unmarked by woe or pain,
Oft may this day return again,
Blessed by him whose rough career
Of toil and care thy love doth cheer.
Whose manly worth by Heaven was fated
To be through life thus fitly mated;
Blessed by those thy youthful twain,
Who by thy side their place maintain,
Still nestling closer to thy bosom
As the fair flowers of reason blossom;
By all who thy dear kindred claim,
And love to see thy face, and love to hear thy name.
And so I end my simple writing,
The muse in fault, but love enditing
That which, but for this love alone,
I thought not ever to have done,--
A birth-day lay. Then sister mine,
Keep thou in kindness this propine,
And through life's yet untrodden scene
Still be to me what thou hast been.