University of Virginia Library

Two careless, happy children,
Up when the east was red,
And never tired and never still
Till the sun had gone to bed;
Helping the winds in winter
To toss the snows about;
Gathering the early flowers,
When spring-time called them out;
Playing among the windrows
Where the mowers mowed the hay;
Finding the place where the skylark
Had hidden her nest away;
Treading the cool, damp furrows
Behind the shining plough;
Up in the barn with the swallows,
And sliding over the mow;
Pleased with the same old stories,
Heard a thousand times;
Believing all the wonders
Written in tales or rhymes;
Counting the hours in summer
When even a day seemed long;
Counting the hours in winter
Till the time of leaves and song.
Thinking it took forever
For little children to grow,
And that seventy years of a life-time
Never could come and go.
Oh, I know they were happier children
Than the world again may see,
For one was my little playmate,
And one, ah! one was me!

A sad-faced man and woman,
Leagues and leagues apart,
Doing their work as best they may
With weary hand and heart;
Shrinking from winter's tempests,
And summer's burning heat;
Thinking that skies were brighter
And flowers were once more sweet;
Wondering why the skylark
So early tries his wings;
And if green fields are hidden
Beyond the gate where he sings!
Feeling that time is slipping
Faster and faster away;
That a day is but as a moment,
And the years of life as a day;
Seeing the heights and places
Others have reached and won;
Sighing o'er things accomplished,
And things that are left undone;
And yet still trusting, somehow,
In his own good time to become
Again as little children,
In their Heavenly Father's home;
One crowding memories backward,
In the busy, restless mart.
One pondering on them ever.
And keeping them in her heart;
Going on by their separate pathways
To the same eternity—
And one of these is my playmate,
And one, alas! is me!