Fugitive Verses

---

TO SOPHIA J. BAILLIE,
AN INFANT.

---

	SWEET bud of promise, fresh and fair,
	Just moving in the morning air,
	The morn of life but just begun,
	The sands of time just set to run!
	Sweet babe with cheek of pinky hue,
	With eyes of soft ethereal blue,
	With raven hair like finest down
	Of unfledged bird and scantly shewn
	Beneath the cap of cumbrous lace,
	That circles round thy placid face!
	Ah, baby! little dost thou know
	How many yearning bosoms glow,
	How many lips in blessings move,
	How many eyes beam looks of love
	At sight of thee!

---

	Some future day,
	And grant it Heaven! thou wilt repay
	The early love of loving friends
	With oft-renewed and dear amends.
	Affection true, as with a spell,
	Hath many ways her tale to tell:
	And thou, with lightsome laughing eye,
	Thy artless love wilt testify
	By proffered kisses oft repeated,
	And words at will, when thou art seated
	On the paternal knee, in glory,
	Rehearsing there thy mimic story—
	By little errands, run so fleetly
	For dear mamma; and when so featly
	Thou dost for her the Dunsbourn heather,
	The primrose and the daisy gather,
	The daisy fresh with unbruised stem,
	Like thee a "bright and bonny gem"—
	All this, and more than I can say
	Will shew thy love some future day.
	Sweet bud of hope, beloved, carest,
	Upon thy head Heaven's blessing rest!

---

VERSES ADDED TO THE FOREGOING BY THE BABY'S
PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER.

	UNCONSCIOUS babe!—not even lines like these
	Have power thy little slumbering sense to please,
	Nor all the charms pourtrayed with so much grace,
	Can force one smile from that soft "placid face."
	But oh, how sweetly on the parents' ear
	Fall tender tones of love from one so dear!
	How seems the little form that pen has traced,
	With future charms and virtues to be graced,
	While brighter seem the hopes such love bestows,
	And the fair prospect with fresh beauty glows.
	Dear, dear Joanna, well employed art thou
	In weaving chaplets for this baby's brow!—
	For this dear babe, who had so welcome been
	To those who now on earth no more are seen!
	For me, for me, in these declining days,
	Nothing remains but humble prayer and praise:
	Praise for the precious boon already given,
	Prayers for its endless happiness in Heaven!

About this text
Courtesy of University of California, Davis. General Library. Digital Intitiatives Program.; http://digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/bwrp
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt567nb8xt&brand=oac4
Title: Fugitive Verses
By:  Baillie, Joanna, 1762-1851, creator, British Women Romantic Poets Project
Date: 2001 (issued)
Contributing Institution: University of California, Davis. General Library. Digital Intitiatives Program.; http://digital.lib.ucdavis.edu/projects/bwrp
Copyright Note:

Any file or element contained herein may be displayed or transmitted across a network by anyone who has signed a license agreement with the U.C. Regents.

Copy and distribution of any element or file is prohibited without the express written permission of the U.C. Regents.

Regents of the University of California