quote · Legacy record

Not those alone are parents, to whose cares The opening buds of human life are given; Truth, Beauty, Love, have each unnumbered heirs, And Earth itself is but the child of Heaven. Nature repeats herself; and human thought Mirrored in deeds, becomes more truly real: Thus only on the web of life are wrought The glowing pictures of the world ideal. The labourer who embowers his cottage round With tasteful gifts—his honest hand the donor, Makes of that little spot of cultured ground, A pleasing transcript of its joyful owner. The matron, toiling with unselfish aim To bless her little band of cherished creatures, But mounts the picture, from whose shining frame For ever beam her dear, benignant features. Thought is the favoured child of thoughtful ones, As heaven is mirrored in the quiet waters; The statesman’s high achievements are his sons, And the sweet poet’s lays his tuneful daughters. The sculptor, bending o’er his marble child, Models himself in fixed, enduring beauty; The painter’s soul hath from the canvass smiled, Breathing deep tones of passion or of duty. None shall die childless; and the frailest one Of all the living crowds around us pressing, May, like the Eternal Father, give his son To be humanity’s perpetual blessing.

Not those alone are parents, to whose cares The opening buds of human life are given; Truth, Beauty, Love, have each unnumbered heirs, And Earth itself is but the child of Heaven. Nature repeats herself; and human thought Mirrored in deeds, becomes more truly real: Thus only on the web of life are wrought The glowing pictures of the world ideal. The labourer who embowers his cottage round With tasteful gifts—his honest hand the donor, Makes of that little spot of cultured ground, A pleasing transcript of its joyful owner. The matron, toiling with unselfish aim To bless her little band of cherished creatures, But mounts the picture, from whose shining frame For ever beam her dear, benignant features. Thought is the favoured child of thoughtful ones, As heaven is mirrored in the quiet waters; The statesman’s high achievements are his sons, And the sweet poet’s lays his tuneful daughters. The sculptor, bending o’er his marble child, Models himself in fixed, enduring beauty; The painter’s soul hath from the canvass smiled, Breathing deep tones of passion or of duty. None shall die childless; and the frailest one Of all the living crowds around us pressing, May, like the Eternal Father, give his son To be humanity’s perpetual blessing.

In print by 1888 AD · industrial

Recorded in a printed collection by this date; the original date of these words is still unknown.