Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, IN VAIN, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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First Line: Down the peach-tree slid
Last Line: Must sing from its own full heart.
Subject(s): Flowers


DOWN the peach-tree slid
The milk-white drops of th' dew,
All in that merry time of th' year
When the world is made anew.

The daisy dressed in white,
The paw-paw flower in brown,
And th' violet sat by her lover, th' brook,
With her golden eyelids down.

Gayly its own best hue
Shone in each leaf and stem, --
Gayly the children rolled on th' grass,
With their shadows after them.

I said, Be sweet for me,
O little wild flowers! for I
Have larger need, and shut in myself,
I wither and waste and die!

Pity me, sing for me!
I cried to the tuneful bird;
My heart is full of th' spirit of song,
And I cannot sing a word!

Like a buried stream that longs
Through th' upper world to run,
And kiss the dawn in her rosy mouth,
And lie in th' light of th' sun;

So in me, is my soul,
Wasting in darkness the hours,
Ever fretted and sullen and sad
With a sense of its unused powers.

In vain! each little flower
Must be sweet for itself, nor part
With its white or brown, and every bird
Must sing from its own full heart.





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