The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

FROM THE NEWBURYPORT HERALD

ON AN INFANT'S SMILE

Sweet lovely Infant! smile again;
Your joyous dimples now display.
Free from life's anxious cares and pain,
If aught of comfort you can gain,
O smile your morning hours away!

Pleasure may well your cheek illume,
Whom Sorrow ne'er has taught to grieve;
Little think you what future gloom,
(Between the cradle and the tomb)
Your father many a pang will give.

Smile while you may, for O, not long
Is blest that good of earth design'd;
Life has its thorns its flowers among,
And Time moves on your years along.
"Much caus'd for sighs and tears you'll find."

Picture of innocence! your breast
Is now the tranquil seat of peace?
Yet there shall all those passions rest,
Which this frail frame of man molest,
With troubles that each hour increase.

Perhaps, (though now I heave the sigh)
I, when as young, was gay as you;
Felt many a throb of ecstacy
Exult my heart, and gild my eye,
As swift my thoughtless moments flew.

But O be praised Him, whose mercy
Hid the dark future from my sight,
Else had I not have liv'd to know
These woes which fill me with despair,
And bury all my hopes in night!

Smile, harmless, Infant! smile again;
Your rosy dimples still display,
Free from life's anxious cares and pain,
If aught of comfort, you can gain,
O smile your morning hours away!