Classic and Contemporary Poetry
TO THE BOY, by ELIZABETH CLEMENTINE DODGE KINNEY Poet's Biography First Line: Thou happiest thing alive Last Line: By earth's discordant things. Alternate Author Name(s): Stedman, Edmund Burke, Mrs. Subject(s): Boys | ||||||||
WHO GOES DAILY PAST MY WINDOWS SINGING 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PORTRAIT OF A BOY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET THOSE BOYS THAT RAN TOGETHER by LUCILLE CLIFTON THE WHITE BOY by LUCILLE CLIFTON COZY APOLOGIA; FOR FRED by RITA DOVE REVELATION 20:11-15 by NORMAN DUBIE BOY'S SLEEP by NAOMI SHIHAB NYE A DREAM by ELIZABETH CLEMENTINE DODGE KINNEY |
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