In my youth ’twas thus I sang,
In my heart’s young hours,
In the first rare Spring of song,
Choosing ’mid the flowers.
So I hesitated when
Time alone was reckoned
By the hours that Fancy smiled,
Love and Beauty beckoned.
Hard it was for me to choose
From the flowers that flattered;
And the blossom that I chose
Soon lay dead and scattered.
Hard I found it then, ah me!
Hard I found the choosing;
Harder, harder since I’ve found,
All too hard, the losing.
Haply had I chosen then
From the weeds that tangle
Wayside, woodland, and the wall
Of my garden’s angle,
I had chosen better, yea,
For these later hours—
Longer live the weeds, and oft
Sweeter are than flowers.
WEEDS BY THE WALL
THE CRICKET
I
First of the insect choir, in the spring
We hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass,
Beneath some blossom’s rosy covering,
Or frond of fern, upon a wildwood pass.
When in the marsh, in clamorous orchestras,
The shrill hylodes pipe; when, in the haw’s
Bee-swarming blooms, or tasseling sassafras,
Sweet threads of silvery song the sparrow draws,
Bow-like, athwart the vibrant atmosphere,—
Like some dim dream low-breathed in slumber’s ear,—
We hear his Cheer, cheer, cheer.