To Sylvia

Two Years Old

Long life to thee, long virtue, long delight,
A flowering early and late!
Long beauty, grave to thought and gay to sight,
A distant date!

Yet, as so many poets love to sing
(When young the child will die),
“No autumn will destroy this lovely spring,”
So, Sylvia, I.

I’ll write thee dapper verse and touching rhyme;
“Our eyes shall not behold—”
The commonplace shall serve for thee this time:
“Never grow old.”

For there’s another way to stop thy clock
Within my cherishing heart,
To carry thee unalterable, and lock
Thy youth apart:

Thy flower, for me, shall evermore be hid
In this close bud of thine,
Not, Sylvia, by thy death—O God forbid!
Merely by mine.