To such as see thee not my words were weak;
To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?
Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art,
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy Spring—
As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart,
Love's image upon earth without his wing,[1]
And guileless beyond Hope's imagining!
And surely she who now so fondly rears
Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening,
Beholds the Rainbow of her future years,
Before whose heavenly hues all Sorrow disappears.
Young Peri of the West!—'tis well for me
My years already doubly number thine;[2]
My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee,
And safely view thy ripening beauties shine;
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline;
Happier, that, while all younger hearts shall bleed,
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign
To those whose admiration shall succeed,
But mixed with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed.
- ↑ [The reference is to the French proverb, L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes, which suggested the last line (line 412) of Childish Recollections, "And Love, without his pinion, smil'd on youth," and forms the title of one of the early poems, first published in 1832 (Poetical Works, 1898, i. 106, 220).]
- ↑ [In 1814, when the dedication was published, Byron completed his twenty-sixth year, Ianthe her thirteenth.]
