There was a time when I was very small,
When my whole frame was but an ell in height;
Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall,
And therefore I recall it with delight.
I sported in my tender mother's arms,
And rode a-horseback on best father's knee;
Alike were sorrows, pa**ions and alarms,
And gold, and Greek, and love, unknown to me,
Then seemed to me this world far less in size,
Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far;
Like points in heaven, I saw the stars arise,
And longed for wings that I might catch a star.
I saw the moon behind the island fade,
And thought, "Oh, were I on that island there,
I could find out of what the moon is made,
Find out how large it is, how round, how fair!"
Wondering, I saw God's sun, through western skies,
Sink in the ocean's golden lap at night,
And yet upon the morrow early rise,
And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light;
And thought of God, the gracious Heavenly Father,
Who made me, and that lovely sun on high,
And all those pearls of heaven thick-strung together,
Dropped, clustering, from his hand o'er all the sky.
With childish reverence, my young lips did say
The prayer my pious mother taught to me:
"O gentle God! oh, let me strive alway
Still to be wise, and good, and follow Thee!"
So prayed I for my father and my mother,
And for my sister, and for all the town;
The king I knew not, and the beggar-brother,
Who, bent with age, went, sighing, up and down.
They perished, the blithe days of boyhood perished,
And all the gladness, all the peace I knew!
Now have I but their memory, fondly cherished;—
God! may I never lose that too!