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My dearest Frank, I wish you joy Of Mary’s safety with a Boy, Whose birth has given little pain Compared with that of Mary Jane.-- May he a growing Blessing prove, And well deserve his Parents’ Love!-- Endow’d with Art’s and Nature’s Good, Thy Name possessing with thy Blood, In him, in all his ways, may we Another Francis WIlliam see!-- Thy infant days may he inherit, THey warmth, nay insolence of spirit;-- We would not with one foult dispense To weaken the resemblance. May he revive thy Nursery sin, Peeping as daringly within, His curley Locks but just descried, With ’Bet, my be not come to bide.’-- Fearless of danger, braving pain, And threaten’d very oft in vain, Still may one Terror daunt his Soul, One needful engine of Controul Be found in this sublime array, A neigbouring Donkey’s aweful Bray. So may his equal faults as Child, Produce Maturity as mild! His saucy words and fiery ways In early Childhood’s pettish days, In Manhood, shew his Father’s mind Like him, considerate and Kind; All Gentleness to those around, And anger only not to wound. Then like his Father too, he must, To his own former struggles just, Feel his Deserts with honest Glow, And all his self-improvement know. A native fault may thus give birth To the best blessing, conscious Worth. As for ourselves we’re very well; As unaffected prose will tell.-- Cassandra’s pen will paint our state, The many comforts that await Our Chawton home, how much we find Already in it, to our mind; And how convinced, that when complete It will all other Houses beat The ever have been made or mended, With rooms concise, or rooms distended. You’ll find us very snug next year, Perhaps with Charles and Fanny near, For now it often does delight us To fancy them just over-right us.--
Jane Austen’s other poems:
