Persia
I am writing this song at the closeOf a beautiful day of the springIn a dell where the daffodil growsBy a grove of the glimmering wing;From glades where a musical wordComes ever from luminous fall,I send you the song of a birdThat I wish to be dear to you all.
I have given my darling the nameOf a land at the gates of the day,Where morning is always the same,And spring never passes away.With a prayer for a lifetime of light,I christened her Persia, you see;And I hope that some fathers to-nightWill kneel in the spirit with me.
She is only commencing to lookAt the beauty in which she is set;And forest and flower and brook,To her are all mysteries yet.I know that to many my wordsWill seem insignificant things;But you who are mothers of birdsWill feel for the father who sings.
For all of you doubtless have beenWhere sorrows are many and wild;And you know what a beautiful sceneOf this world can be made by a child:I am sure, if they listen to this,Sweet women will quiver, and longTo tenderly stoop to and kissThe Persia I’ve put in a song.
And I’m certain the critic will pause,And excuse, for the sake of my bird,My sins against critical laws—The slips in the thought and the word.And haply some dear little faceOf his own to his mind will occur—Some Persia who brightens his place—And I’ll be forgiven for her.
A life that is turning to greyHas hardly been happy, you see;But the rose that has dropped on my wayIs morning and music to me.Yea, she that I hold by the handIs changing white winter to green,And making a light of the land—All fathers will know what I mean:
All women and men who have knownThe sickness of sorrow and sin,Will feel—having babes of their own—My verse and the pathos therein.For that must be touching which showsHow a life has been led from the wildTo a garden of glitter and rose,By the flower-like hand of a child.
She is strange to this wonderful sphere;One summer and winter have setSince God left her radiance here—Her sweet second year is not yet.The world is so lovely and newTo eyes full of eloquent light,And, sisters, I’m hoping that youWill pray for my Persia to-night.
For I, who have suffered so much,And know what the bitterness is,Am sad to think sorrow must touchSome day even darlings like this!But sorrow is part of this life,And, therefore, a father doth longFor the blessing of mother and wifeOn the bird he has put in a song.