----'That make them eagle wings To pierce the unborn years.'
I might 'prattle out of reason,' and fancy what, in defiance of precedent furnished by propinquity of blood, he possibly _might_ be; an aldermanic personage, redolent of wines and soup--goodly in visage, benevolent in act, but strict in justice. I might fancy him with a most voluminous periphery, and a laugh that shakes the diaphragm, from the _imo pectore_ to the vast circumference of the outer man. These things may be imagined, but not believed. Yet it is with others as with ourselves: 'We know what they are, but not what they may be.' Time adds to the novel thoughts of the child, the tricks and joyance of the urchin--the glow of increasing years, the passion of the swelling heart, when experience seems to school its energies. But in the flush of young existence, I can compare a child--the pride and delight of its mother and its kindred--to nothing _else_ on earth, of its own form or image. It is like a young and beautiful bird--heard, perhaps, for once, in the days of our juvenescence, and remembered ever after, though never seen again. Its thoughts, like the rainbow-colored messenger discoursed of in the poetic entomology of La Martine,
'Born with the spring, and with the roses dying-- Through the clear sky on Zephyr's pinion sailing; On the young flowret's open bosom lying-- Perfume, and light, and the blue air inhaling; Shaking the thin dust from its wings, and fleeing, And soaring like a breath in boundless heaven: How like Desire, to which no rest is given! Which still uneasy, rifling every treasure, Returns at last above, to seek for purer pleasure.'
IN truth, I do especially affect that delightful period in the life of every descendant of old Fig Leaves, in Eden, which may truly be called the _April_ of the heart. How sweet are its smiles! And on the face of babyhood, 'the tears,' to use the dainty term of Sir Philip Sidney, 'come dropping down like raine in ye sunshine, and no heed being taken to wype them, they hang upon the cheekes and lippes, as upon cherries which the dropping tree bedeweth.' Halcyon season! Its pure thoughts and rich emotions come and go, like the painted waftage of a morning cloud; or most like that fulness of pearls which may be shaken from the matin spray. The night, to such, comes with its vesper hush and stillness, like the shadow of a shade. Sorrow is transient, and Hope ever new. Sabbath of the soul, fresh from its God! To the vision of these, how brightly the leaves move, and the breeze-crisped waters quiver! How their quick pulses bound, in the newness of existence, at that which is ancient and disdained of the common eye! To them, every color is prismatic, and wears the hue of Eden. With thoughts like these, however _un-novel_, I apostrophize 'MY BOY:'