Page:The Poetical Works of William Motherwell, 1849.djvu/459

 Had tended me, as if I were her own And only offspring. When a very child, She said, her soothing whispers oft beguiled The achings of my heart—that in my youth, She, too, had given me dreams of Honour, Truth, Of Glory and of Greatness—and of Fame— And the bright vision of a deathless name! And she had turned my eye, with upward look, To read the bravely star-enamelled book Of the blue skies—and in the rolling spheres To con strange lessons, penned in characters Of most mysterious import—she had made Life's thorny path to be all sown with flowers Of diverse form and fragrance, of each shade Of loveliness that glitters in the bowers Of princely damoisels,'—Nay, more, her hand Had plucked the bright flowers of another land, Belike of Faerye, and had woven them Like to a chaplet, or gay diadem, For me to wear in triumph—But that she Had fostered me so long, she feared, I'd spoil With very tenderness, nor ever be Fit for this world's coarse drudgery and moil; Did she not even now take leave of me, And her protecting, loving arms uncoil