SEEKING THE MAY-FLOWER
And ah! from yonder trellised home,
Less sweet the faces are that peer
Than those of old, and voices come
Less musically to my ear.
Sigh not, ye breezy elms, but give
The murmur of my sweetheart's vows,
When Life was something worth to live,
And Love was young beneath your boughs!
Fade beauty, smiling everywhere,
That can from year to year outlast
Those charms a thousand times more fair,
And, O, our joys so quickly past!
Or smile to gladden fresher hearts
Henceforth: but they shall yet be led,
Revisiting these ancient parts,
Like me to mourn their glory fled.
SEEKING THE MAY-FLOWER
The sweetest sound our whole year round,
'T is the first robin of the spring!
The song of the full orchard choir
Is not so fine a thing.
Glad sights are common: Nature draws
Her random pictures through the year,
But oft her music bids us long
Remember those most dear.
To me, when in the sudden spring
I hear the earliest robin's lay,
With the first trill there comes again
One picture of the May.
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