To the Boy

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.