Excerpt From "The Young Artist"

Honors may bloom on thy future way;
And the rays of glory around thee play.
But fame’s best laurels never will be
So dear as thy sister’s wreath to thee!
For, they will not set on a cloudless brow,
And a silken curl, as we see them now!
Fame will her envied crown prepare
For the whitening locks and the brow of care.
Its clustering leaves will not be lit
By the smile of a child, who has braided it!
As thy native castle, sublimely grand,
A beautiful structure, thou mays’t stand
High and unmoved by the tempest’s strife,
The bolt and the blast of the storms of life.
But should it be thus, there must come a day
When thy house will shake, and its strength decay;
When the light that will gild its crumbling towers
Must be left by the sun of thy childish hours!
Then, may their memory, like the vine,
Mantling over the ruin, twine,
And, spreading a living vesture, climb
To cover the rust and the tooth of time,
And curtain with verdure the mouldering walls,
Which shall not fade till the fabric falls!