Just let me grow up quietly.
Don't watch each faltering step
    I take,
expecting me to fall,
and when I don't,
don't cheer . . .
My triumphs must be normal
    to me.

Don't weep
if I adventure where you've been
    before
and there repeat
mistakes you've made.
Just trust me
for the seeker that I am
and know unspoken
that I'll find the other end
of any long, dark tunnels.

Neither you nor I
have any hold on learning.
Just let me go
and I will do the same for you
in time.
     --Nancy Gail Gilliland (born mid-XXth century)

well, time to say fare
well, time to sit under
neath your hat and atop
your own kind of horse.
grow some kind of wings, Kid,
shut that light, turn off that door.

swallow the key, sneak away
climba tree, and let
go let come, let go,
let come,
package Past in leak-proof cellophane and
kiss sweet Future hello.
You've built the ark, now set sail.
     --Bev Sailors

I recognize that I belong to the family
    of man
Made up of all human beings
Of every race, color, creed, and ideology
Now living on this Planet Earth.

I understand that there can be no
    common good
Without an individual good.

I am responsible for myself
And for all human beings
Who share this earth with me.

I know that our enemies
Are those among us
Who will not
Join in sharing the responsibility
For our common good.

I accept my own personal responsibility
To replace darkness with light
To replace hatred with love
To replace suspicion with trust
To replace lies and hypocrisy with honesty
To replace abuse with fairness
To replace frustration with patience
To replace fear with understanding
To replace bias, prejudice,
    and discrimination with tolerance
To replace ignorance with knowledge
To replace indifference with concern
And to replace apathy with action.

I believe that all men are entitled
To equal opportunities
To live. to grow, and to flourish
As human beings
With dignity and with self-respect.

I acknowledge that
It is far better
To live and work for peace
Than to die for peace.

As a member of the family of man
Now living on this Planet Earth
I thus commit myself
And challenge my children
And their children
To do as well.
     --Lou Torok (born mid-XXth century)
          (poem published in 1972)
          Lou Torok is a convict, now [1972] serving time
          in the Chillicothe (Ohio) Correctional Institute.
          In a note to the editor he says: "This was written
          after I viewed the ruins of Attica Prison in New York
          State on television. It seemed to me that a new
          redefining of basic issues is needed to bring our human
          problems back into focus."
          (a revised version of this poem, copyrighted 1996, is
          on http://www.appleseeds.org/21cent_Torok.htm)

Seeking,
at first blindly
through darkness,
then with gradual
vision,
for a tangible
truth,
I stumbled
upon another
searcher.

Together we clung
as the rising sun
revealed us
to ourselves
and to each other.
Then in the blessing
of light's reality,
in the sublimity
of seeing,
we merged
into the one
we had always been
and found
our meaning,
our truth
in our eternal
unity.
     --John D. Engle Jr (1922-2006)

Tes yeux sont doux comme ceux d'une fille,
Jeune étranger,
Et la courbe fine
De ton beau visage de duvet ombragé
Est plus séduisante encore de ligne.
Ta lèvre chante sur le pas de ma porte
Une langue inconnue et charmante
Comme une musique fausse . . .
Entre! Et que mon vin te réconforte . . .

Mais non, tu passes
Et de mon seuil je te vois t'éloigner
Me faisant un dernier geste avec grâce
Et la hanche légèrement ployée
Par ta démarche féminine et lasse . . .

The Indifferent

Your eyes are as gentle as a girl's,
young stranger,
and the delicate curve
of your handsome face shaded with down
is even more seductive of outline.
On my door step your lips sing
a fascinating, unknown tongue,
deceptively like music . . .
Come in,
and let my wine refresh you.
But no, you pass on
and I see you draw away from my threshold,
making me a last graceful salute,
your hips lightly undulating
in your lethargic effeminate gait . . .
     --Tristan Klingsor [Arthur Justin Léon Leclère](1874-1966)
          Shéhérazade, a collection of one hundred poems
          Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1903
          set to music as part 3 of Maurice Ravel's Shéhérazade, 1903

You're black
but I never thought of that --
as you did
and brought it up
while I was thinking
you're a movement,
a floating, sometimes
dipping dance
that I want to hold
until I move that way.
And I was thinking
you're a softness,
sensitive to nuance,
with the possibility of hurt
(not yours but someone else's)
in your deep brown eyes
that complement
your deep dark skin
which, yes, I saw
as I see the color of the sun
then turn to watch it fall
on things around it
     --June Goodwin (born mid-XXth century)

America, my gratitude to you
and love I am unable to restrain
since one great day, when first I felt the dew
on friendly soil and joined your free domain.
New land, to you I owe my very best
that was not killed in me the final year
of trial, year that strengthened me through test
when God protected me from human fear.
I consecrate my mind to you, my pen
and faith that dawns in a triumphal day.
Just country, hope of freedom hungry men,
help all humanity on upward way,
    until the boughs of brotherhood will bear
    the fruit of understanding everywhere.
     --Elizabeth Antonova
          You, Lonely One, Poems of Elizabeth Antonova
          Miami FL: Hurricane House, 1965

The days consume the years.
Train windows of days flash by.
The busyness of wheels churning away time.

These are the good years,
The beloning, busy years,
Inside dreams kept warm
By lights from many windows.

The freight of time shrieks by.

I am a traveler
Stumbled into a gold mine,
And having no pockets,
I carry what I can
In my hand.
     --Marilyn Reed Riddle (born mid-XXth century)
          The Archer

Why is it that whenever I think of you
I see a field of daisies, or a star;
or when I'm drawn to any lovely thing,
suddenly there you are?
The answer stirs within my thought. But then
a mockingbird sings sunset down the sky,
or rainbows arch across the hills again,
or near at hand a redbird flashes by.
And there you are, full partner to the sight,
as if I cried you forth; as if you came.
And my perception kindles in your light.
And all things beautiful attend your name.
     --Bonnie May Malody (fl. mid-XXth century)

Now with time slanting down
like the sun in the west
toward the sea when the day
is more than half over,
let us stay within reach
of the call of our words.
More than ever before
we have need of each other.

O my friend, let our doors
(so familiarly known)
stay a little ajar
with the old expectation.
Let the fragrance of bread
and inflections of welcome
stream out like a light.
We have need of each other.
     --Bonnie May Malody (fl. mid-XXth century)

"A people without a religion of beauty
inhabit a waste land." --Herbert Read

    To behold the beauty now invisible
    is to stand still, to remember the young,
    to find the condemned, the unbelieved-in
    and to say "I believe in you.
    It is to be led out of your wilderness.
    It is to lead the young, the lost,
    teaching the eye not to squint,
    attuning no ear to profanity.
    It is to say "My vision is cosmic.
    My universe has many rings
    and I live only on the innermost
    of these. My love is black, is white."
    I believe in you, brother.
    In you looms a new world
    of undiscovered character.
    Be Columbus
    to all that continent of light . . .
     --Godfrey John (fl. mid-XXth century)

I'm a man who has lived my life alone
In seclusion, confusion, I'm dying
All I wanted was a son

I would take him on my knee
Hold him close to me
Provide protection, direction, I'd love him
All I wanted was a son

I would take him to the zoo to see the animals
I'd buy him lollipops in the Summertime
I'd make him paper airplanes and take him to the movies
And give him a quarter when he asked for a dime

I'm a man who has dreamed my whole life away
The day she left me only kept me
From giving something living
For the world to remember me.
     --Jim Seals (born 1941)
          from the Seals and Crofts album, "Year of Sunday" (1971)
          lyrics by Jim Seals, Music by Jim Seals and Darrell Crofts (born 1940)

We have this need to make the pieces fit,
E matching Y and B explained by C;
the inevitable "2 plus 2 make 4"
of rules to prove the sum conclusively
and fix the blame where answers disagree.

But every now and then we find ourselves
with something more, with bits and parts left over;
a joy there is no category for
and no clear cause,
that blossoms out of season,
beautiful in its own right and needing
no by-your-leave of precedent or reason.
     --R.H. Grenville (born 1915)

If I can teach again
I will listen
From without and within
To what is said and silent.

If I can teach again
I will hope to
Hear the flutter
Sense the question
Heed the hope
Ease the tension
Feel the glow
See the spark ignite.

And so
    maybe
        give.
     --Deanne Myra Lawrance (1928-2010)

O the people O the people

who have chosen to know
only other people
    who are like themselves.

O what they are missing

O missing without
even knowing what it is
    that is being missed.

What lies in themselves

waiting to be disclosed:
this they are missing --
    the people who choose

to know only other people

who are like themselves.
     --Doris Peel (died 1990)

          Cat lay sunning on the windowsill,
and I arranged the tall, white flowers,
feeling the quiet of the house flow like peace within
                    my thought,
          when, suddenly, the clock chimed
                  three-thirty

and just as if a brass band had marched up our basement steps
          my son came home from school.
Never alone, of course, three other sixteen-year-olds came, too,
pushing past each other calling hello
tossing a basketball among themselves
their talk and joy and noise and laughter vibrated up and
                  down the stairs,
like a whole alley-full of tipped over trash cans.

          Immediately cat sought the safer quarters
                  of the study,
but the two dogs (all adoring eyes and eager tails) acclaimed
          the occasion with raucous barking
and were rewarded with vigorous pummeling and head-patting.
Someone picked up the trumpet and showered a tumult of
          blunt, blaring notes
          into the wisecracking conversation,
as freshly-baked cake and cold milk disappeared.

Notebooks and jackets,
chemistry, math and The Great Literature of Our Times
          were piled on the kitchen table
          along with track shoes and a transistor radio
          no one had bothered to click off
(so it kept singing to itself in a tin voice,
"I love ya, I tell ya, and ain't it enough?")

          I went back to arranging the white flowers
          full of vital joy and the promise of good things,
          humming the silly radio tune to myself happily
because suddenly, somehow, the house felt more like home again.
     --Kathryn Ainsworth Grover

Yesterday there was slush,
Today there is ice.
New snow fell during the night;
It powdered the fields,
the hills, the dark pines
on the side of the mountain.

Yesterday a daffodil
was poking through
the soil in my garden.
Today I'm afraid to look.
What does new snow do
to an emerging daffodil?

I looked.
The daffodil was still there,
still green.

"There are times," it said to me --
one green eye peering
under a white hat of snow --
"There are times
when one cannot go forward."

Thud!
That was the snow
falling off the little green head.

The green eye looked at me openly:
"But one need not
go backward either."
     --Kim Williams

Today,
for no reason at all,
and suddenly
like sun warming down
between clouds,
I will send you my love.

Today
happiness
is winging from me
to circle your roof;
here are bright seeds
of laughter
to sow in your heart.

Today,
and suddenly,
I am shining with gladness
for you
and for today.
     --Daphne Caulfield

Behind me now forever far,
    The Cruel cage, the iron bar
    Which held me fast
I have no visible scars, thank God,
    I left them where the prisoners plod.
This heart is bent on fresh pursuit,
    Tgwards Love and Trust,
    And wholesome roots.
This birth shall last.
     --Tinker Whittier

there was a wordlessness
inexplicable pause
then you and I
took the first plural
finding
new endings to our verbs
     --Esther Whitmarsh (born c.1900)

I should never have counted the years,
should never have marked a beginning
the moment we met.
Love has its origin
so deep in the past, it was born before
the oldest remembrance made myth of it.

The tale is open-ended
as earliest fable, still
being told, always
to grow in future retelling.
Lovers-to-come will spend their breaths
adding to our story.
     --Norma Farber (1910-1984)

Skateboards whirr
out of winter
around the curves
of blacktopped paths
in Boston Common,
peeling the first
warm March afternoon
down to roots
of summer skies.

White tennis shoes
pressed against
gravity's treadmill,
sitting on
the handlebars, a boy
balances Tremont Street
cars past the theaters
and into spring.
     --Martin Bobbins (1932-1991)

Everyone should be given
the chance to be new
every minute,
not labelled and charted
and listed
in catalogued classification.

Foolish words
uttered yesterday
are unsaid by the setting sun,
washed away by the new moon tides:
fresh thoughts have already begun.

Release me
from patterned opinion.
Let me be new;
and I'll tear up
the stagnant records
I kept about you.

Everyone should be given
the chance to be born again,
minute by minute.
The world isn't standing still,
nor anything in it.
     --Cynthia Hafeli-Wells (born mid-XXth century)

Now walking these pavements with your son
in his Big Wheel clattering on the cement
you stop to browse outside the windows
of his morning kindergarten classroom.
Then he finds a ledge and jumps onto your back
piggybacking on the ladder of your shoulders.
He picks up chestnuts and leftover maple wings
and stores them in your swelling pockets,
his curios of nature, like the fireflies
of a month ago he put inside his mayonnaise jar.

Now, by your lamp in the evening,
as he lies under his covers,
you want to hold the hour in your hands
but instead you have a chestnut
and upstairs the breath of your boy.
     --Peter Krok

                      Sudden sun

                              bursts

                      in your thought.
                      The tree at the window
                      takes leaf in your book.



                              Unannounced

                              five birds invade the page;
              five shadows
              gather the print in their wings,
              move within the branches' tracery
              that grows through the words.

                    Their meanings alight

                              Notes on the stave of the tree,
                              they remain
                              after the birds are gone,
                              after the words fly free.

The eye becomes the ear.

You're wondering why
in all this sun, in all this gentle urging
five sounds frame one
dear

      cosmic cry . . .

     --Godfrey John (fl. mid-XXth century)

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn't your father, or mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

He's the fellow to please -- never mind all the rest
For he's with you, clear to the end
And you've passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you've cheated the man in the glass.
     --Peter Dale Wimbrow Sr (1895-1954)
          poem first published in 1934

Happy the man who has made harbor,
Who leaves behind him seas and storms,
Whose dreams are dead or never born,
And who sits and drinks in a Bremen beer-hall,
Beside the stove, in peace and quiet.
Happy the man like an extinguished flame,
Happy the man like estuary sand,
Who has laid down his load and wiped his forehead
And rests at the side of the road.
He fears nothing, hopes for nothing, expects nothing,
But stares fixedly at the setting sun.
                          10 September 1964
     --Primo Levi (1919-1987)
          Ruth Feidman & Brian Swann (translators). Collected Poems.
          London: Faber & Faber, 1988

Noon.
        Cobalt sky so near, so still,
easy to believe you could lean upon it.

Under the brown wedge of cliff
a pale green sea
                  fans,
feathering to the horizon
                  an outspread wing.

Form the rock's balance
                  a boy
            dives

slim as a shaft
            brighter than air
prising
        himself away from the grasp of land,
verging an instant over
                  the planet's rim

alone
                  exultant!
His are of turn bisects the middle distance.

Precisely at that point
certain apprehensions of space and time
vanish.
     --A.L. Hendriks

If you had been here I would have said --
I would have said nothing.
Your silence joined with mine holds every word
within the cupped palms of understanding.

With others I am lost in words which have no meaning,
but with you each phrase is as clearly understood
as cold water dropping upon a parched tongue;
and as long remembered.

To look into your eyes is to feel peace
coming like the rain-wind
across a parched, imploring land.

Laughter bubbles between us like an uncovered spring;
what is there to regret, what is there to wish for,
now that we are together?

I have forgotten all that you ever said,
but the meaning of your words beats in my heart
like music and like the sea
and like the wind among the mountains.
     --Gilean Douglas [Gillian Joan Douglas](1900-1993_

I

It was just like old times,
as they say,
except it was better
than the old times.

It was more like the new, new times
to come.

More like what we are,
and are becoming,
and will be,

Than like what we have been,
and were.

II

What ever can I give to you
of myself,
that you have not already
acknowledged as your own?

What gift is left, then,
to pass between us,
but the living out
of that ultimate, priceless gift
of friendship,
already given. and received,
and given back again?

III

Was ever the wind
so gentle on my face?
Did the sea ever stretch out its arms
to such wide horizons?
Has the sky ever been so full
of peace and promise?

Has it been that I have been alive,
here, on this earth,
through many years,
or have I just been born
for the first time today,
into this world
of inexpressible beauty
and tenderness?

IV

It occurs to me,
    as I watch the wind move
through these ancient olive trees,
that thirty years from now
these ties between us will be stronger
whatever paths our lives may take,

and that I shall cherish you then,
in that quite distant time
(so far beyond our present seeing).
even more than I do now.
     --A.J. Constance

What will be important to me tomorrow?
Today I can't imagine anything
that would make me wish to see beyond your face.
But even so, some drift of memory
may float back, let me fleetingly review
something that was important to me once.

So many things I valued long ago:
a curious shell I held up to my ear;
a slim and delicate pinkish mango leaf;
a boy who sat behind me, pulled my hair --
a boy I now recall, so much like you
he might have been the sitter for a painting
called "Portrait of the Lover as a Child."

However far, however fast I travel
I can't outrun, outdistance yesterday
that races right behind me like a shadow
and then turns up ahead of me as well.

Yet in a way we all may come full circle
as Giotto di Bondone in old age
designing, planning, even helping carve
among the figures of his campanile
a puppy he had romped with as a boy
recalled from days of tending his father's flocks
and sketching sheep with chalk upon the rocks.
     --E.B. (Ethel) DeVito (1911-2009)

Let's not plan too much
or expect

or promise
or say how much
or how little

or outline how things must be
or how they must not be.

All of us here on this beautiful
spinning blue world,
let's just love each other
from one millisecond to the next
as much as we can.
     --A.J. Constance

"Stability is shaking."
Then out of it! March on!
History is making
as ever from the drawn
weapon of injustice
freedom's fighting brawn.

"Security is breaking."
And in the breaking go
the prisons men were making
lest danger let them grow.
Security's the unsafest
estate that man can know.

"Our solid earth is quaking.
The ancient props are gone."

Then forth, new bastions taking
to build a world upon!
Only darkness -- breaking --
has ever been the dawn.
     --Dorothy Lee Richardson (born early XXth century)

Be.
Say to others but
without the word.
Don't overuse.
See.
Find in minutiae
of tree and bird.
Choose.
And being free,
with gestures made of silence
stand among, alone, and of.
Agree
oh, with all that is -- and love --
and, loving,
be!
     --Bonnie May Malody (fl. mid-XXth century)

To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear
This paltry age's gaudy livery,
To let each base hand filch my treasury,
To mesh my soul within a woman's hair,
And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom,--I swear
I love it not! these things are less to me
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,
Less than the thistledown of summer air
Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof
Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life
Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof
Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,
    Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife
    Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.
     --Oscar Wilde [Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde](1854-1900)
          Poems.London: David Bogue, 1881, p.202

no matter how fast you run
deep you hide.
It will wait on a
strcetcorncr
reading a newspaper
until you step off your bus.
When you find a
fairy ring in the forest
my love will be there
sitting on a toadstool
watching for you.

And all the while
I will be here
only here --
no wind swift travel
no airy ambience
mine.
But my love knows
no limitations
it is
where you are!
     --Margaret Tsuda (born 1921)

The night has a thousand eyes,
    And the day but one,
Yet the light of the bright world dies
    With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
    The heart but one,
But the light of a whole life dies
    When love is done.
     --Francis William Bourdillon (1852-1921)

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
    No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one quiet hint I'll leave you,
          For every day.

I'll tell you how to sing a clearer carol
    Than lark who hails the dawn or breezy down;
To earn yourself a purer poet's laurel
          Than Shakespeare's crown.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever;
    Do noble things, not dream them, all day long;
And so make Life, and Death, and that For Ever
          One grand sweet song.
     --Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)
          to C.E.G., February 1, 1856. Poems. London: Macmillan and
          Co., Limited/New York: The Macmillan Company, 1902, p.284

I don't know how I came to be here
except that I was brought
by someone older

or someone who'd been here before
and thinking it important
to bring me too
took my hand.

Never telling me
even then who he was; for I was simply
to know
by the warmth and the grip.

So young I was
so curious! But I never let on
and even though
slow to return anything but fear,
I felt it. I felt it there
and never let go.
     --Carol Adler (born mid-XXth century)

Is there a youth who thinks that life
is a thing of beauty, a thing of joy?
if there is, then catch and cage him,
he is a rare and marvellous boy.

Surely one golden, glum-faced lad,
quick to pronounce the world a fraud,
finds, in his sad embittered life,
some little thing to love and laud?

Be it but pop or fish and chips,
let him acclaim his lovely loves!
Stand you up, boy, and shout your piece,
a nightingale among mourning doves.

Dare to rejoice if there be some
odd little something you can praise;
dare to cry out if life is sweet
on one of a dozen Saturdays.
     --Virginia Graham (1910-1993)

One night you
came into my room,
cuddled into bed with me
Small cold feet,
Downy head
filled with child-questions

Upon the wall your hands
described, in dark and gentle patterns,
the flowings of your mind,
your dreams,
Exposed imagination

Like snowflakes
drifting onto
quiet winter-pines
your nighttime shadow
rhythms
touched me
and then, melted into
time
     --Paula Gocker-Roth (born c.1947)

I like to see you lean back in your chair
so far you have to fall but do not --
your arms back, your fine hands
in your print pockets.

Beautiful. Impudent.
Ready for life.
A tied storm.

I like to see you wearing your boy smile
whose tribute is for two of us or three.

Sometimes in life
things seem to be moving
and they are not
and they are not
there.
You are there.

Your voice is the listened-for music.
Your act is the consolidation.

I like to see you living in the world.
     --Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

is on the telephone.
He dials a number,
speaks with a friend about the speed of light,
and then, abrupt, hangs up.
No innuendos complicate his life.
He watches television,
studies, feeds his cat,
eats pretzels,
plays a game of chess,
laughs, tells a riddle.
asks "What time will Dad be home tonight?"
He is so lean and quick and light,
who runs like water through my life,
these clear, uncluttered years
flowing, like some small mountain stream,
toward its predestined river.

Every day
I try to practice
letting go.
     --Joan Stern (born 1924)

Young as the young never are,
I bend overhead September's deepening bough
seasoned with summer.

From April I wandered far
out of first pock of green, first gouge of plough.
Young as the young never are.

deliberate late-comer
I rambled new through June. By August now
seasoned with summer,

I hunger for the dark star
at the white heart of October's apple. How
young as the young never are

I treasure the gourd's gold tumor
in a clasp chilled with November! A crystal dower
seasoned with summer

ices the vine. The calendar
bids me, an eager child, welcome the snow:
young as the young never are,
seasoned with summer.
     --Norma Farber (1910-1984)

Close the door gently. Do not shout good-bye.
It's over you think. but it is never over.
another hour or day, another year,
a flicker of eye, a trick of shade or light
and I may stand regloried in your sight.

It's done you think, but it is never done
the Star of Bethlehem
may still be riding quietly in space
may suddenly, mysteriously arise
to shimmer dazzlingly in Eastern skies
and herald an incredible Second Coming
with who knows what undreamed-of consequence.

Close the door softly, never say good-bye;
the earth turns and returns on the same old axis
and even children know there are words so powerful
that they are in effect an eternal key
so that to whisper "Open Sesame"
swings wide the door to some old treasure trove
not once or twice, but as often as you try.

What you believe is over is never over,
not in our lifetime or in any other:
the halcyon days return when it is time
no matter what has happened in between.
ask Ceyx if you will, ask Halcyon, ask me.
     --E.B. (Ethel) DeVito (1911-2009)

The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
                                I seek to love. not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
                                I seek to heal, not hurt . .

Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
                                Let the soul control the outer form,
All life and all events.
                                And bring to light the love
Which underlies the happenings of the time . . .

Let vision come and insight.
                                Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
                                Let love prevail.
Let all men love.
     --John Freeman

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.

There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.

Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
     --Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will some new pleasure prove,
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run.
Warmed by thine eyes more than the sun.
And there th'enamored fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim.
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, beest loath.
By sun or moon, thou darkenest both;
And if myself havve leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or tracherously poor fish beset
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest.
Or curious traitors. sleave-silk flies
Bewitch poor fishes' wandering eyes.

For thee, thou needest no such deceit.
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish that is not catched thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.
     --John Donne (1572-1631)
          This is Donne's response to Marlowe's "The Passionate
          Shepherd to His Love" (see above).

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Gray sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!
     --James Joyce (1882-1941)
          from Louis Untermeyer (Editor). Modern British Poetry.
          New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962. pp.270-271

They cry unto the night their battle-name:
    I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laughtcr.
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
    Clanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.

They come shaking in triumph their long, green hair:
    They come out of the sea and run shouting by the shore.
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair?
    My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?
     --James Joyce (1882-1941)
          from Philip Larkin (Editor). Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse.
          Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, pp.162-163

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not, writ over the door,
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore,

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars, my joys & desires.
     --William Blake (1757-1827)
          "Songs of Experience", in David V. Erdman (Editor).
          Poetry and Prose of William Blake,
          Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1965, p.26

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
            Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
            From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
            If I lack'd anything.

'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
          Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
            I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
            'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
            Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
            'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
            So I did sit and eat.
     --George Herbert (1593-1632)
          The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Poem No.280
          set to music by John Taverner (born 1944) in 1985 for the enthronement
          of the Bishop of Winchester; also set by Vaughan Williams (1911)
          and John Harper

Selige Knaben

Er überwächst und schon
An mächt'gen Gliedern
Wird treuer Pflege Lohn
Reichlich erwidern
Wir wurden früh entfernt
Von lebechören
Doch dieser hat gelernt
Er wird uns lehren

Una Pœnitentium

Vom edlen Geisterchor umgeben,
Wird sich der Neue kaum gewahr,
Er ahnet kaum das frische Leben,
So gleicht er schon der heil'gen Schar.
Sieh, wie er jedem Erdenbande
Der alten Hülle sich entrafft
Und aus ätherischem Gewande
Hervortritt erste Jugendkraft!
Vergönne mir, ihn zu belehren
Noch blendet ihn der neue Tag.

[Translation:]

Blessed Boys

He oustrips us already
on mighty limbs,
he will richly requite
the reward of faithful care.
We were early snatched
from the choir of life,
but this man has learned.
He will teach us.

Una Pœnitentium

Encircled by the noble choir of spirits,
the newly-arrived is scarcely conscious of himself
hardly conscious of the new life,
so much does he resemble the sacred host already.
See how he divests himself of every
earthly bond of his former husk.
And, from ethereal raiment
steps forth in the first flush of youth!
Let me be his tutor.
The new day dazzles him still.
     --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [Göte](1749-1832)
          Schlußszene aus Faust (Final Scene from Faust)
          text used by Gustav Mahler in his Symphony VIII, Second Movement
          (Finale) English translation by Friedel Becker and Peggy Cochrane.
          It is worth noting that virtually all translations of "Selige Knaben"
          are rendered as "Blessed Boys". (The only exceptions I
          could find are in the booklets accompanying the 1999 Sony re-release
          of Leonard Bernstein's 1966 London Symphony recording [the original
          Columbia vinyl release had ". . . Boys" with the
          translation credited to Bayard Taylor], and the 2009 San Francisco
          Symphony release of Michael Tilson Thomas's recording with that
          orchestra, in which Richard León's and Larry Rothe's respective
          translations had "Blessed Children".) There is no
          question that "Boys" is the correct term, and that a boy
          choir is intended by the composer to sing these parts, as such choirs
          were always male in both Goethe's and Mahler's times; indeed, in all of
          the recordings -- including the Bernstein and Tilson Thomas versions
          noted above -- boy choirs were used to sing the parts. The two
          translation exceptions noted were in recordings released
          recently. If "Knaben" is translated as "Children" merely
          to satisfy some notion of political correctness, that constitutes
          "revisionist history", and should be rejected as unacceptably
          poor scholarship. Another group seen (and heard) in the Goethe/Mahler
          text is "Chor der Büßerrinen" - which is always translated
          as "Chorus of Penitent Women", never "Chorus of Penitent Persons".
          (That would just be silly.) Historical accuracy must take precedence
          over post-modern sensitivity.

I love you
not only for what you are,
but for what I am
when I'm with you.

I love you
not only for what
you have made of yourself
but for what
you are making of me.

And you do it
without words, touch or signs,
but just by being yourself,
and that is the most valuable
reason of all.
     --David Bissonette (born mid-XXth century)

When you're just out walking and you pass
Little signs that say "Keep off the grass"
Did you ever stop and ask yourself why?
Pretty playgrounds children used to know
Little squares where lovers love to go
Disappear so parking lots can grow
Why?

Once you start the questions never cease
What's disturbed when you disturb the peace
Pets and children are prohibited
Why? Ask yourself why?

And when you think about it
Bullets fly like popcorn on the screen
Recommended wholesome nice and clean
Making love's the thing that can't be seen
Why?

Let your hair down just an inch or two
Let your skin be red or green or blue
They invent a special name for you
Why?

On a clear day, Oh say can you see
What remains of mountain greenery
Can you glimpse above the scenery . . . sky . . .
Beautiful sky . . . as shiny as a penny
So when you're out walking and you pass
Near a sign that says "Keep off the grass"
Put a sign right next to it that says, "Why?"
     --Marilyn Bergman (born 1929) and Alan Bergman (born 1925)
          (music by Michel Legrand [born 1932])
          from the film La Piscine [The Swimming Pool] (1969)

A small boy walked down a city street
And hope was in his eyes
As he searched the faces of the people he'd meet
For one he could recognize

Brother, where are you?
They told me that you came this way
Brother, where are you?
They said you came this way

The eyes of the people who passed him by
Were cold and hard as stone
The small boy whimpered and began to cry
Because he was all alone

Brother, where are you?
They told me that you came this way
Brother, where are you?
They said you came this way

Now there are many
Who will swear it's true
That brother are we all
And yet it seems there are very few
Who will answer a brother's call

Brother, where are you?
They told me that you came this way
Brother, where are you?
They said you came this way
     --Oscar Brown Jr (1926-2005)

Adventure goes where he goes --
It tangles in his hair,
Puts freckles on his peeling nose
Or wags beside his chair.
It slithers, harmless, through the grass
And makes his sister scream --
Or lifts his kites so high they pass
His rivals'. At the stream,
Adventure flirts a tail and fin
The minute he appears.
(Someday he'll catch and put it in
His bucket.) Past his ears
Adventure whistles in November,
Cold and slightly blue.
Capped and ear-muffed in December,
He goes whistling too.

Adventure walks where he walks,
Grows taller as he grows;
Fielding thunder, racing hawks --
I wonder if he knows?
     --Bonnie May Malody (fl. mid-XXth century)
          Saturday Evening Post, Volume 234, Issue 33, August 1961, p.44

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were -- I have not seen
As others saw -- I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone.
Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn
Of a most stormy life -- was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold --
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by --
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
     --Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter
of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will,
a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the
freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of
the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists
in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely
by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back
to dust.

Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human beings heart the
lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of whats next, and
the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and
my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages
of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite,
so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of
cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at
twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of
optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.
     --Samuel Ullman (1840-1924)
          written c.1918 when the author was 78
          quoted by Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his speech to a Banquet hosted by the
          American Legion, published in New York Times, 27 January 1955, p.8:
              ". . . indeed, we might [find the "Fountain of Youth"]
              if we only understood what the poet [Samuel Ullman (1840-1924)]
              said, that youth is not entirely a time of life it is a state
              of mind. It is not wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips or
              supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the
              imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep
              springs of life. It means a temperamental predominance of
              courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over
              love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number
              of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
              Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest
              wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and
              despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the
              head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whatever
              your years, there is in every being's heart the love
              of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the
              unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the
              joy and the game of life. You are as young as your
              faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your
              self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as
              your hope, as old as your despair. In the central
              place of every heart there is a recording chamber;
              so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope,
              cheer and courage, so long are you young."
          (apparently Ullman's "prose-poem" was a favorite of
          MacArthur's which he framed and hung in his office in Tokyo
          while he was Supreme Commander for the Allied Forces following
          World War II, and which he quoted or referred to on many occasions);
          also echoed (plagiarised? -- he didn't mention Ullman) by Robert F.
          Kennedy in his "Day of Affirmation" speech on 6 June 1966 (6-6-66!)
          at the University of Cape Town: "This world demands the qualities
              of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the
              will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over
              timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease."

Ah, may I keep through my maturity,
    Unsoiled by the world's impurity,
The dreams of childhood, all those little dreams
    Whose power helps to draw the wide extremes
Of living closer; so that right and wrong
    I hold as synonyms of weak and strong;
That one's possessions somehow count for less
    Than his capacity for happiness;
That laughter sits with very easy grace
    Upon my lips, and on a comrade's face;
That days roll round the calendar and bring
    Each in its way, some lovely, valued thing.
Thus years shall weave into life's tapestry
    The golden thread of childhood's legacy.
     --Anna Hamilton Wood (born late XIXth century)
          published in Anthony Wons (Editor). Tony's Scrap Book: 1932-33 Edition.
          Chicago: Reilly & Lee Company, 1932, p.56

To me in this corporeal sphere
A Child of Heaven did appear:
Naked he was, of thirteen-year.

Sublime he was, & full of grace:
He seem'd all beauties to embrace
Of every sense & age and race.

His eyes with heaven's fire did shine:
His body ray'd with health divine!
His Spirit melted into mine!

Into my heart of hearts he stole,
And blazed in Wisdom in my soul
That made my vision clean & whole.

Now East & West & South & North,
To all the quarters of the Earth,
My Book shall give his wisdom forth!
     --Ralph Nicholas Chubb (1892-1960)
          page included in Autumn Leaves (1940), a posthumously-published
          collection of 14 large lithographed illustrations, probably intended for
          inclusion in The _Child of Dawn (1948)

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest Du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.

Wanderer's Night-Song

On all hilltops
There is peace.
In all treetops
You will hear
Hardly a breath.
Birds in the woods are silent.
Just wait, soon
You, too, will rest.
     --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [Göte](1749-1832)
          Goethes Werke (Weimarer Ausgabe). Weimar: Bohlau, 1887-1918, 1:98
          Set to music by Schubert ("Wanderers Nachtlied II
          ["Wayfarer's Night Song II"], D.768), Grieg ("Über allen
          Gipfeln ist Ruh'"), Ives ("Ilmenau: Over All the Treetops"),
          Liszt ("Nachtlied"), Schumann ("Ruhe"), Zelter ("Wandrers Nachtlied")

I am on the make-believe team.
I can act! I can dream!

I can be whatever I wish.
A clumsy fox. An elegant fish.

I am a downbird without my wings,
Or any one of a thousand kings.

I am a star in the licorice sky.
I am the June bug who stayed for July.

I am the very last tiger on earth.
I'm broken and sad. How much am I worth?

I am simply a shadow learning about
How to be silent and when to come out.

I am the new Commissioner of Rocks,
Polishing pebbles and looking at clocks.

I am a kitten persuading a cloud.
"Don't rain on my day!" I speak rather loud.

And all of this happens here in my room
With my puppets, my props, my old gypsy broom.

Only here do I feel both awe and delight.
Only here do I know the magic of flight.

I'm a butterfly! I'm a balloon!
I spin and create in my thoughtful cocoon.

But everything changes for me at school.
I never know what to say as a rule.

It's kind of strange. I really try.
The words won't come. And I don't know why.

I always feel edgy, and awkward, and cold.
Like I'm locked in my seat. Like I might become old.

The teacher thinks I have cheese in my head.
And that's what some of the others have said.

If they could just know my delicate part.
My sadness. My soul. My humor. My heart.

If they could just see
The magic in me.

If they could just see
How fine I can be.

The papers scatter. The voices stir.
The school day ends with a beep and a blur.

I return to my world. What shall I do
Now that I'm free to create something new.

I am a carrousel whirling around.
I love to make a bellowing sound.

I am a mousetrap convincing a mouse.
"Beware of my cheese! Run back to your house!"

I'm a timid brave on a wooded hill
Where demons dance and the winds bring chill.

I am a swallow learning to glide,
Bursting and thumping and tingling inside.

I'm a part-time king on a mushroom throne.
I'm gentle and wise. And very alone.

Tickle my spirit! Touch my spark!
Come and enter my fantasy park.

We'll seize the moment and snatch its treasure.
We'll look at things with a magic measure.

We are on the make-believe team.
We can act! We can dream!
     --Gary Zingher (born c.1944)
          The Christian Science Monitor, 20 January 1973

There was a boy
A very strange, enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far,
Very far over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he

And then one day
One summer day he passed my way
And as we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me

The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return
     --Eden Ahbez [George Alexander Aberle](1908-1995)
          title song, The Boy With Green Hair, 1948 film

Now, goodnight little wrangler.
The moon is in the meadow of the sky,
And the stars, like your pony standing drowsy
Blink their purple eyes.

So goodnight little wrangler,
Knee-deep in new-mown hay you gather dreams
And you'll find them all a-waiting
Deep down in the pockets of your jeans.

So take me along, little wrangler.
It's been many and many a day.
Take me by the hand along with you.
Long ago I lost my way.

So goodnight little wrangler.
May the springtime of your life go on and on,
And may God bless and keep you
When you wake up smiling each new dawn.

So goodnight, goodnight, goodnight.
     --Stan Jones (1914-1963)
          The Adventures of Spin and Marty, TV series, 1955, Episode 15
          sung by Bill Burnett (Harry Carey Jr)

Aber abseits, wer ist's?
Ins Gebüsch verliert sich sein Pfad,
Hinter ihm schlagen
Die Sträuche zusammen,
Das Gras steht wieder auf,
Die Öde verschlingt ihn.

Ach, wer heilet die Schmerzen
Des, dem Balsam zu Gift ward?
Der sich Menschenhaß
Aus der Fülle der Liebe trank!
Erst verachtet, nun ein Verächter,
Zehrt er heimlich auf
Seinen eignen Wert
In ungnügender Selbstsucht.

Ist auf deinem Psalter,
Vater der Liebe, ein Ton
Seinem Ohre vernehmlich,
So erquicke sein Herz!
Öffne den umwölkten Blick
Über die tausend Quellen
Neben dem Durstenden
In der Wüste.

Rhapsody

But who goes there apart?
He loses his path in the thicket.
The branches spring back
Behind him
And the grass rises again.
A wasteland engulfs him.

Oh, who can heal the wounds
Of one whose balm has become poison?
From the springs of love he drinks
Hatred for all mankind.
First scorned, now a scorner,
Secretly gnawing
At his own worth
In a barren egoism.

If there be on your psalter,
All-loving Father, one tone
That may reach his ear,
then reawaken his heart!
Open his clouded eyes
To the thousand oases
That well up for those who thirst
In the desert.
     --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [Göte](1749-1832)
          aus der Harzreise im Winter [Winter Journey in the Harz Mountains] (1777)
          used as text of Johannes Brahms's "Alt-Rhapsodie", Op.53 (1869)

Often I think of the beautiful town
    That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
    And my youth comes back to me.
        And a verse of a Lapland song
        Is haunting my memory still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
    And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
    Of all my boyish dreams.
        And the burden of that old song,
        It murmurs and whispers still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
    And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
    And the magic of the sea.
        And the voice of that wayward song
        Is singing and saying still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
    And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
    And the bugle wild and shrill.
        And the music of that old song
        Throbs in my memory still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the sea-fight far away,
    How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,
        Where they in battle died.
        And the sound of that mournful song
        Goes through me with a thrill:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
    The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
    In quiet neighborhoods.
        And the verse of that sweet old song,
        It flutters and murmurs still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
    Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
    Are longings wild and vain.
        And the voice of that fitful song
        Sings on, and is never still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

There are things of which I may not speak;
    There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
    And a mist before the eye.
        And the words of that fatal song
        Come over me like a chill:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
    When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
    As they balance up and down,
        Are singing the beautiful song,
        Are sighing and whispering still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
    And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were
    I find my lost youth again.
        And the strange and beautiful song,
        The groves are repeating it still:
        "A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
     --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
          NOTE: the town "seated by the sea" is Portland, Maine,
          according to Longfellow's Journal entry of 20 March 1855;
          see Longfellow's Life, Volume II, p.284

Blessings on thee, little man, barefoot boy with cheek of tan,
With thy turned-up pantaloons and thy merry whistled tunes,
With thy red lip, redder still kissed by strawberries on the hill,
With the sunshine on thy face through thy torn brim's jaunty grace.
From my heart I give thee joy. I was once a barefoot boy.

Prince thou art, the grown-up man only is republican.
Let the million-dollar'd ride. Barefoot, trudging at his side
Thou hast more than he can buy in the reach of ear and eye.
Outward sunshine, inward joy. Blessings on thee, barefoot boy.

Oh, for boyhood's painless play, sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bees' morning chase, of the wild flowers' time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude of the tenants of the wood,
How the tortoise bears his shell, how the woodchuck digs his cell
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young, how the oriole's nest is hung,
Where the whitest lilies blow, where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine, where the wood-grapes' clusters shine;
Of the black wasp's cunning way, mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans of gray-hornet artisans.
For eschewing books and tasks Nature answers all he asks.
Hand in hand with her he walks, face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy. Blessings on thee barefoot boy.

Oh, for boyhood's time of June crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw, me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees, hummingbirds and honey bees.
For my sport the squirrel played, plyed the snouted mole his spade.
For my taste the blackberry cone purpled over hedge and stome.
Laughed the brook for my delight through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall, talked with me from fall to fall.
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine on bending orchard trees apples of Hesperides.
Still as my horizon grew, larger grew my riches, too.
All the world I saw or knew seemed a complex Chinese toy
Fashioned for a barefoot boy.

Oh, for festal dainties spread, like my bowl of milk and bread,
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, on the doorstone gray and rude.
O'er me like a regal tent, cloudy-ribbed the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, looped in many a wind-swung fold,
While for music came the play of the pied-frogs' orchestra,
And to light the noisy choir lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch! Pomp and joy waited on the barefoot boy.

Cheerily then, my little man, live and laugh as boyhood can.
Though the flinty slopes be hard, stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through fresh baptisms of the dew.
Every evening from thy feet shall the cool wind kiss the heat.
All too soon these feet must hide in the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod, like a colt's for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil, up and down in ceaseless moil,
Happy if their track be found never on forbidden ground,
Happy if they sink not in quick and treacherous sands of sin.

Ah, that thou couldst know thy joy ere it passes, barefoot boy.
     --John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), 1855