My Dearest Frank I Wish You Joy

My dearest Frank,

I wish you

Of Mary's safety with a Boy,

Whose birth has given little

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

Another Francis William see!—Thy infant days may he inherit,

They warmth, nay insolence of spirit;—We would not with one foult

To weaken the resemblance.

May he revive thy Nursery sin,

Peeping as daringly within,

His curly 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

Be found in this sublime array,

A neighbouring Donkey's awful Bray.

So may his equal faults as Child,

Produce Maturity as mild!

His saucy words and fiery

In early Childhood's pettish days,

In Manhood, shew his Father's

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

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

Our Chawton home, how much we

Already in it, to our mind;

And how convinced, that when

It will all other Houses

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

To fancy them just over-right us.—