To My Daughter On Being Separated from Her on Her Marriage

Anne Hunter

Dear to my heart as life’s warm stream
  Which animates this mortal clay,
For thee I court the waking dream,
  And deck with smiles the future day;
And thus beguile the present pain
With hopes that we shall meet again.

Yet, will it be as when the past
  Twined every joy, and care, and thought,
And o’er our minds one mantle cast
  Of kind affections finely wrought?
Ah no! the groundless hope were vain,
For so we ne’er can meet again!

May he who claims thy tender heart
  Deserve its love, as I have done!
For, kind and gentle as thou art,
  If so beloved, thou art fairly won.
Bright may the sacred torch remain,
And cheer thee till we meet again!