To the Mother

Say, while you press, with growing love, The darling to your breast, And all a mother's pleasures prove, Are you entirely blest? Ah! no; a thousand tender cares, By turns your thoughts employ; Now rising hopes, now anxious fears, And grief succeeds to joy. Dear innocent, her lovely smiles, With what delight you view! But ev'ry pain the infant feels, The mother feels it too. Then whispers busy, cruel fear, "The child, alas, may die!" And nature prompts the ready tear, And heaves the rising sigh. Say, does not Heav'n our comforts mix With more than equal pain, To teach us, if our hearts we fix On earth we fix in vain? Then be our earthly joys resign'd, Since here we cannot rest; For earthly joys were ne'er design'd To make us fully blest.