University of Virginia Library


37

Sweet Seventeen

I would not bring the menace
Of mourning autumn near
The tender buds of promise
Of this thy blossoming year!
O fresh in mind and feature!
I would not overcast
The sunshine of thy future
With the shadow of my past.
I would not breathe my sorrows,
To blur with ageing blight
Thy green ungathered morrows,
Unfolding to the light;
God keep thee, fairy creature!
God separate, to the last,
The sunshine of thy future
From the shadow of my past!