The Liberator

LITERARY.

From the Ladies' Magazine.

THE LITTLE FOOT.

BY MISS HANNAH F. GOULD.

My boy, as gently on my breast,
From infant sport thou sink'st to rest,
And on my hand I feel thee put,
In playful dreams, thy little foot,
The thrilling touch sets every string
Of my full heart a quivering;
For, ah! I think, what chart can show.
The ways through which this foot may go?
Its print will be, in childhood's hours,
Traced in the garden, round the flowers;
But youth will bid it leap the rills—
Bathe in the dews of distant hills—
Roam o'er the vales, and venture out,
When riper years would pause and doubt;
Nor brave the pass, nor try the brink
Where youth's unguarded foot may sink.
But what, when manhood tints thy cheek.
Will be the ways this foot may seek?
Is it to lightly pace the deck?
To, helpless, slip from off the wreck?
Or wander o'er a foreign shore,
Returning to thy home no more,
Until the bosom, now thy pillow,
Is low and cold beneath the willow?
Or is it for the battle plain?
Beside the slayer and the slain-
Till there its final step be taken?
There, sleep thine eye, no more to waken?
Is it to glory, or to shame—
To sully, or to gild thy name—
Is it to happiness or wo,
This little foot is made to go?
But wheresoe'er its lines may fall,
Whether in cottage, or in hall;
O may it ever shun the ground
Where'er His foot hath not been found,
Who on his path below, hath shed
A living light, that all may tread
Upon his earthly step; and none
E'er dash the foot against a stone!
Yet if thy way is mark'd by fate,
As guilty, dark and desolate,—
If thou must float, by vice and crime,
A wreck upon the stream of time-
Oh! rather than behold that day.
I'd know this foot, in lightsome play,
Would bound with guiltless, infant glee
Upon the clod that shelters me.