| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 268. To the Boy |
| | | Who Goes Daily Past My Windows Singing |
| | | By Elizabeth Clementine Kinney |
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| THOU happiest thing alive, | |
| Anomaly of earth! | |
| If sound thy lineage give, | |
| Thou art the natural birth | |
| Of affluent Joy— | 5 |
| Thy mother’s name was Mirth, | |
| Thou little singing boy! | |
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| Thy star—it was a sun! | |
| Thy time the month of May, | |
| When streams to music run, | 10 |
| And birds sing all the day: | |
| Nature did tune | |
| Thy gushing voice by hers; | |
| A fount in June | |
| Not more the bosom stirs; | 15 |
| A freshness flows | |
| Through every bubbling note,— | |
| Sure Nature knows | |
| The strains Art never wrote. | |
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| Where was the human curse, | 20 |
| When thou didst spring to life? | |
| All feel it less, or worse, | |
| In pain, in care, in strife. | |
| Its dreadful word | |
| Fell from the lips of Truth; | 25 |
| ’T is but deferred, | |
| Unconscious youth! | |
| That curse on thee | |
| Is sure some day to fall; | |
| Alas, more heavily | 30 |
| If Manhood takes it all! | |
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| I will not think of this— | |
| It robs me of my part | |
| In thy outgushing bliss: | |
| No! keep thy glad young heart | 35 |
| Turned toward the sun;— | |
| What yet shall be, | |
| None can foresee: | |
| One thing is sure—that thou hast well begun! | |
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| Meantime shall others share, | 40 |
| Wild minstrel-boy, | |
| As I, to lighten care, | |
| The music of thy joy,— | |
| Like scents of flowers, | |
| Along life’s wayside passed | 45 |
| In dreary hours,— | |
| Too sweet to last; | |
| Like touches soft | |
| Of Nature, on those strings | |
| Within us, jarred so oft | 50 |
| By earth’s discordant things. | |
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