For Katie On Her Eighteenth Birthday

O little daughter of delight
and grave and lovely growing girl
Years after year you see the white
Snow flurry and pink blossoms swirl,
Year after year spontaneous joy
Drives you to pick up brush and pen,
Paint and translate and make a toy
Of what is labour to most men.
Spontaneously you make things grow
Out of your fingers and your eyes,
For what you feel you also know,
And what you see you realise
In growing art in shape or word
Or colour or a story told.
And yet you laugh, it is absurd
You think, it is all fairy gold.
And sometimes sorrow clouds your eyes
And anger for man’s suffering lot
And noble indignations rise
Harsh from your heart, and sharply hot.
But always still the white snow swirls,
And always still the blossoms flurry,
And you, the dearest of all girls,
May take your time and not hurry.