Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE BOY, by ELIZABETH CLEMENTINE DODGE KINNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE BOY, by                     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.





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