WHO IS EXPECTED SOON TO BECOME VISIBLE <br /> <br />Germ of new life, whose powers expanding slow <br />For many a moon their full perfection wait,- <br />Haste, precious pledge of happy love, to go <br />Auspicious borne through life's mysterious gate. <br />What powers lie folded in thy curious frame,- <br />Senses from objects locked, and mind from thought! <br />How little canst thou guess thy lofty claim <br />To grasp at all the worlds the Almighty wrought! <br />And see, the genial season's warmth to share, <br />Fresh younglings shoot, and opening roses glow! <br />Swarms of new life exulting fill the air,- <br />Haste, infant bud of being, haste to blow! <br />For thee the nurse prepares her lulling songs, <br />The eager matrons count the lingering day; <br />But far the most thy anxious parent longs <br />On thy soft cheek a mother's kiss to lay. <br />She only asks to lay her burden down, <br />That her glad arms that burden may resume; <br />And nature's sharpest pangs her wishes crown, <br />That free thee living from thy living tomb. <br />She longs to fold to her maternal breast <br />Part of herself, yet to herself unknown; <br />To see and to salute the stranger guest, <br />Fed with her life through many a tedious moon. <br />Come, reap thy rich inheritance of love! <br />Bask in the fondness of a Mother's eye! <br />Nor wit nor eloquence her heart shall move <br />Like the first accents of thy feeble cry. <br />Haste, little captive, burst thy prison doors! <br />Launch on the living world, and spring to light! <br />Nature for thee displays her various stores, <br />Opens her thousand inlets of delight. <br />If charmed verse or muttered prayers had power, <br />With favouring spells to speed thee on thy way, <br />Anxious I'd bid my beads each passing hour, <br />Till thy wished smile thy mother's pangs o'erpay.<br /><br />Anna Laetitia Barbauld<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-a-little-invisible-being/
