Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Elizabeth ClementineKinney

268 To the Boy

THOU happiest thing alive,

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 star—it was a sun!

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.

Where was the human curse,

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!

I will not think of this—

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!

Meantime shall others share,

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.