Advice To My Future Grand-Daughter Poem by Jan Struther

While I am young, and have not yet forsworn
Valour for comfort, truth for compromise,
I write these words to you, the unknown, unborn
Child of the child that in this cradle lies:
'Live, then, as now I live; love as I love
With body and heart and mind, the tangled three;
Sell peace for beauty's sake, and set above
All other things ecstasy, ecstasy.'
And if, grey-headed by the fireside,
Filled with the withered wisdom of October,
I frown upon your April; if I chide
And murmur, 'Child, be good,' or, 'Child, be sober,'
Then, then (I charge you now) no longer stay:
But laugh, and toss your head, and go your way.