IF ONE MIGHT LIVE.

IF one might live ten years among the leaves,
     Ten—only ten—of all a life’s long day,
Who would not choose a childhood ’neath the eaves
     Low-sloping to some slender footpath way?

With the young grass about his childish feet,

     And the young lambs within his ungrown arms,
And every streamlet side a pleasure seat
     Within the wide day’s treasure-house of charms.

To learn to speak while young birds learned to sing,
     To learn to run e’en as they learned to fly;

With unworn heart against the breast of spring,
     To watch the moments smile as they went by,

Enroofed with apple buds afar to roam,
     Or clover-cradled on the murmurous sod,
To drowse within the blessed fields of home,

     So near to earth—so very near to God. [Page 131]

How could it matter—all the after strife,
     The heat, the haste, the inward hurt, the strain,
When the young loveliness and sweet of life
     Came flood-like back again and yet again?

When best begins it liveth through the worst;
     O happy soul, beloved of Memory,
Whose youth was joined to beauty as at first
     The morning stars were wed to harmony. [Page 132]