University of Virginia Library

FLOWERS AND CHILDREN.

Oh the flow'rets, the bonnie wee flow'rets,
Glinting and smiling and peeping through the grass!
And oh the children, the bonnie little children,
I see them and love them and bless them as I pass!
I bless them—but I'm sad for them—
I wish I could be glad for them,
For who, alas! can tell me the Fate that shall befall?
The flow'rets of the morning,
The greenwood path adorning,
May be scattered ere the noontime by the wild wind's sudden call;
Or plucked because they're beautiful,
By rudest hands, undutiful;
Or trampled underfoot by the cattle of the stall;
And the smiling little children, the bonnie little children,
That sport like happy moths in the sunny summer sheen,
May perish ere the day-time
Of their sweet expected May-time,
And sleep beneath the daisies and the long grass growing green;
Or a worse, worse fate may light on them,
And cast more fatal blight on them:
The bonnie little maiden may be wooed and cast away.
And the bonnie boy prove ruthless,
Or cowardly, or truthless,
Or a gold-adoring hypocrite before his head be gray.
But oh, ye fairy blossoms! whatever be the Future,
I would not, if I might, peer through its awful glass.
Bloom, flowerets of the wild wood!
Rejoice, O happy childhood!
I look at you and love you and bless you as I pass.