To My Daughter

(on her birthday)

Dear Fanny! nine long years ago,
While yet the morning sun was low,
And rosy with the eastern glow
The landscape smil'd;
Whilst low'd the newly-waken'd herds -
Sweet as the early song of birds,
I heard those first, delightful words,
"Thou hast a child!"

Along with that uprising dew
Tears glisten'd in my eyes, though few,
To hail a dawning quite as new
To me, as Time:
It was not sorrow - not annoy -
But like a happy maid, though coy,
With grief-like welcome, even Joy
Forestalls its prime.

So may'st thou live, dear! many years,
In all the bliss that life endears,
Not without smiles, nor yet from tears
Too strictly kept:
When first thy infant littleness
I folded in my fond caress,
The greatest proof of happiness
Was this - I wept.

Thomas Hood . 1798-1844

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Poetry of Hood

Thomas Hood
born 1798, died 1844

Poems

The Wee Man
The Exile
The Lay of the Labourer
The Song of the Shirt
Gold
The Bridge of Sighs
The Death-Bed
I Remember, I Remember!
I Love Thee!
To An Absentee
To -
The Forsaken
Ruth
To My Daughter
To A Child
A Parental Ode To My Son, Aged Three Years And Five Months
To A False Friend
Flowers
The Lee-Shore

See all poems index for
Thomas Hood

To My Daughter - Thomas Hood - poetry, poems

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