Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CHILDREN'S BOATS, by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CHILDREN'S BOATS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O little loop of water, with the green
Last Line: In that far spring men call eternity?
Subject(s): Boats; Children; Future Life; Games; Spring; Childhood; Retribution; Eternity; After Life; Recreation; Pastimes; Amusements


OLITTLE loop of water, with the green
Of girdling grasses round your lustered sheen,
Where are the boats the children used to ride
Upon the bosom of your dimpled tide?
Those boats they loved, and launched with large-eyed zest
On Orient faring or for Polar quest?

Where are the boats, -- and where the children, too?
Have they, as such explorers often do,
Sunk with their ships? Or do they haply find
The new is like the old they left behind:
Their deep-sea conquests and their valiant claims
To far-found earth are naught but childish games?

I know not, but I know they are not here,
These young adventurers of yesteryear.

Is it because November, keen with frost,
Is come, or are the tiny strayers lost?
I listen, and I wait; perhaps the spring
Will lure them back, and with the first bird's wing
Up in the blue, again shall spread the sails
That took the sunlight, or that dared the gales:
Perhaps, -- when comes the May: or must it be,
In that far spring men call Eternity?





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