281. To Charlotte Pulteney

TIMELY blossom, Infant fair,

Fondling of a happy pair,

Every morn and every night

Their solicitous delight,

Sleeping, waking, still at ease,

Pleasing, without skill to please;

Little gossip, blithe and hale,

Tattling many a broken tale,

Singing many a tuneless song,

Lavish of a heedless tongue;

Simple maiden, void of art,

Babbling out the very heart,

Yet abandon’d to thy will,

Yet imagining no ill,

Yet too innocent to blush;

Like the linnet in the bush

To the mother-linnet’s note

Moduling her slender throat;

Chirping forth thy pretty joys,

Wanton in the change of toys,

Like the linnet green, in May

Flitting to each bloomy spray;

Wearied then and glad of rest,

Like the linnet in the nest:—

This thy present happy lot

This, in time will be forgot:

Other pleasures, other cares,

Ever-busy Time prepares;

And thou shalt in thy daughter see,

This picture, once, resembled thee.