Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.
By Elizabeth ClementineKinney268 To the Boy
T
Anomaly of earth!
If sound thy lineage give,
Thou art the natural birth
Of affluent Joy—
Thy mother’s name was Mirth,
Thou little singing boy!
Thy time the month of May,
When streams to music run,
And birds sing all the day:
Nature did tune
Thy gushing voice by hers;
A fount in June
Not more the bosom stirs;
A freshness flows
Through every bubbling note,—
Sure Nature knows
The strains Art never wrote.
When thou didst spring to life?
All feel it less, or worse,
In pain, in care, in strife.
Its dreadful word
Fell from the lips of Truth;
’T is but deferred,
Unconscious youth!
That curse on thee
Is sure some day to fall;
Alas, more heavily
If Manhood takes it all!
It robs me of my part
In thy outgushing bliss:
No! keep thy glad young heart
Turned toward the sun;—
What yet shall be,
None can foresee:
One thing is sure—that thou hast well begun!
Wild minstrel-boy,
As I, to lighten care,
The music of thy joy,—
Like scents of flowers,
Along life’s wayside passed
In dreary hours,—
Too sweet to last;
Like touches soft
Of Nature, on those strings
Within us, jarred so oft
By earth’s discordant things.