XLIV.
Ere long the cares of helpless babyhood
To the next stage of infancy give place,
That age with sense of conscious growth endued,
When every gesture hath its proper grace:
Then come the unsteady step, the tottering pace;
And watchful hopes and emulous thoughts appear;
The imitative lips essay to trace
Their words, observant both with eye and ear,
In mutilated sounds which parents love to hear.
XLV.
Serenely thus the seasons pass away;
And, oh! how rapidly they seem to fly
With those for whom to-morrow like to-day
Glides on in peaceful uniformity!
Five years have since Yeruti's birth gone by,
Five happy years;—and ere the Moon which then
Hung like a Sylphid's light canoe on high
Should fill its circle, Monnema again
Laying her burthen down must bear a mother's pain.
