And I was once like this! that glowing cheek <br />Was mine, those pleasure-sparkling eyes, that brow <br />Smooth as the level lake, when not a breeze <br />Dies o'er the sleeping surface! twenty years <br />Have wrought strange alteration! Of the friends <br />Who once so dearly prized this miniature, <br />And loved it for its likeness, some are gone <br />To their last home; and some, estranged in heart, <br />Beholding me with quick-averted glance <br />Pass on the other side! But still these hues <br />Remain unalter'd, and these features wear <br />The look of Infancy and Innocence. <br />I search myself in vain, and find no trace <br />Of what I was: those lightly-arching lines <br />Dark and o'erhanging now; and that mild face <br />Settled in these strong lineaments!--There were <br />Who form'd high hopes and flattering ones of thee <br />Young Robert! for thine eye was quick to speak <br />Each opening feeling: should they not have known <br />When the rich rainbow on the morning cloud <br />Reflects its radiant dies, the husbandman <br />Beholds the ominous glory sad, and fears <br />Impending storms? they augur'd happily, <br />For thou didst love each wild and wonderous tale <br />Of faery fiction, and thine infant tongue <br />Lisp'd with delight the godlike deeds of Greece <br />And rising Rome; therefore they deem'd forsooth <br />That thou shouldst tread PREFERMENT'S pleasant path. <br />Ill-judging ones! they let thy little feet <br />Stray in the pleasant paths of POESY, <br />And when thou shouldst have prest amid the crowd <br />There didst thou love to linger out the day <br />Loitering beneath the laurels barren shade. <br />SPIRIT of SPENSER! was the wanderer wrong? <br />This little picture was for ornament <br />Design'd, to shine amid the motley mob <br />Of Fashion and of Folly,--is it not <br />More honour'd by this solitary song?<br /><br />Robert Southey<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-my-own-minature-picture-taken-at-two-years-of/
