Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
To the Daughter of an Old Sweetheart
By George Denison Prentice (18021870)I
And were I young should love thee for thine own.
Afresh in thee her early charms awake,
And all her witcheries are round thee thrown;
Thine are her girlhood’s features, and I know
Her many virtues in thy bosom glow.
As that bright maid, the beautiful, the true,
The gentle being for whom thou wast named,
The Juliet that our glorious Shakespeare drew.
Thine is her magic loveliness—but, oh,
What fiery youth shall be thy Romeo?
Be happier than the lot of those of old;
May ye, like them, bow low at passion’s shrine,
May love within your bosoms ne’er grow cold;
And may your paths be ne’er, like theirs, beset
By strifes of Montague and Capulet.
Half frenzied by his passion’s raging flame,
And kindling with a poet’s fervid glow,
May fancy he might cut thy beauteous frame
Into bright stars to deck the midnight sky—
But, gentle Juliet, may he never try!
To thy fair mother in her girlhood bright,
And now this humbler offering I pay
To thee, oh, sweet young spirit of delight.
And may I not, tossed on life’s stormy waters,
Live to make rhymes, dear Juliet, to thy daughters?