To Fiona



Dear little child, whose very speech
Gives me joy beyond my heart's measure,
However far my years may reach,
Life can offer no greater treasure.

Loveliest flower in my garden of dreams!
Mine have been sweet like fairy stories ---
But of all that have come true, it seems
Your babyhood brought the greatest glories.

All my life long I have tried to make
Dreams in a perfect song go winging;
I knew the wonder when you spake,
And your life went a lyric singing.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

26 sec read
46

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 466
Words 87
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

William Stanley Braithwaite

William Stanley Beaumont Braithwaite was an American writer, poet and literary critic. Braithwaite was born in Boston, Massachusetts. At the age of 12, upon the death of his father, Braithwaite was forced to quit school to support his family. When he was aged 15 he was apprenticed to a typesetter for the Boston publisher, Ginn & Co., where he discovered an affinity for lyric poetry and began to write his own poems. From 1906 to 1931 he contributed to The Boston Evening Transcript, eventually becoming its literary editor. He also wrote articles, reviews and poetry for many other periodicals and journals, including the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, and the The New Republic. In 1918 he was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1935, Braithwaite assumed a professorship of creative literature at Atlanta University. He retired from Atlanta University in 1945. In 1946, he and his wife Emma Kelly, along with their seven children, moved to Sugar Hill—a neighborhood in Harlem, New York—where Braithwaite continued to write and publish poetry, essays and anthologies. more…

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