To a Child

(Girl Reading, 1828, by Gustav Henning,
1797-1869, German artist)

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. ~ Seventeenth-century English proverb

TO A CHILD

My fairest child, I have no song to sing thee;
No lark could pipe in skies so dull and gray;
Yet, if thou wilt, one lesson I will give thee
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever;
Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long;
And so make Life, Death, and that vast For Ever
One grand sweet song.

~ Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), English poet, novelist, and historian