How flashed the spray as we plunged in,—
Pure gems that never caused a sin!
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young.
When you and I were young, we heard
All sounds of Nature with delight,—
The whirr of wing in sudden flight,
The chirping of the baby-bird.
The columbine's red bells were rung;
The locust's vested chorus sung;
While every wind his zithern strung
To high and holy-sounding keys,
And played sonatas in the trees—
When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young,
When you and I were young, we knew
To shout and laugh, to work and play,
And night was partner to the day
In all our joys. So swift time flew
On silent wings that, ere we wist,
The fleeting years had fled unmissed;
And from our hearts this cry was wrung—
To fill with fond regret and tears
The days of our remaining years—
"When you and I were young, my boy,
When you and I were young."
UNEXPRESSED
Deep in my heart that aches with the repression,
And strives with plenitude of bitter pain,
There lives a thought that clamors for expression,
And spends its undelivered force in vain.
What boots it that some other may have thought it?
The right of thoughts' expression is divine;
The price of pain I pay for it has bought it,
I care not who lays claim to it—'t is mine!
And yet not mine until it be delivered;
The manner of its birth shall prove the test.
Alas, alas, my rock of pride is shivered—
I beat my brow—the thought still unexpressed.
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