TO MAY H. R——.
Many a lovely dream a poet might
Weave into fancies round thy lovely name,
Sweetheart; yet I, who surely have no claim
To be a poet,—(save the holy right
Love gives me to write poems at the sight
Of a young face whose eager brightness came
As part of life’s best gift to me,—) can frame
No fitter reason why in such delight
I hold the one sweet syllable, than this:
Not for its visions of the field or wood,
But for its wealth of possibilities;
Its hint of undefined, ideal good,
Suggesting all thy soul can scarcely miss,
That May one day crown thy rich womanhood.