Daughter!

Daughter!
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid.
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle,
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for my child an hour,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years to come
Dancing to a frenzied drum
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
May she become a flourishing hidden tree,
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound;
Oh, may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is heaven's will,
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
You are an angel my dear,
An angel you're to us,
An angel who has been sent from heaven on earth.
You're wrapped in silver paper and placed in a beautiful heaven basket.
You look like this lovely jewel or a diamond placed in a casket.
God sent you to us and we promised him we'll treat you right,
Because you are a gift sent to us in a sunshine.
We love you little daughter,
You're an angel from heaven.