Dear Catherine, and David too,
How very sweet it was of you
To telegraph that you were here,
New-lighted on this lower sphere.
That though unlooked for, both had come,
To bring into the earthly home
The light and joy of Paradise
That shine from your four infant eyes.
Your excellent and learned papa,
Your beautiful and sweet mama,
Must be most charmed to call you theirs;
Although you bring new fears and cares.
Perhaps at night you'll cry and roar,
And they must wake, and walk the floor.
You'll have the measles and the mumps,
The whooping-cough, the rash, the dumps.
And all those things, so troublesome,
That mortal children suffer from.
Dear little pilgrims, just begun
In this wide world life's race to run
Upon life's rough and thorny road,
Fresh from the fashioning hand of God;
Speed on the course, and win the prize,
The prize most worthy in his eyes.