Poems (McDonald)/Lament of Age for Boyhood

by Mary Noel McDonald

LAMENT OF AGE FOR BOYHOOD.

My boyhood! Oh! my boyhood!
 Give me back the blessed time,
When the heart so gay and careless,
 And the light-winged hours were mine
Give me back the bounding footstep,—
 Give me back the merry tone,—
And the laugh that rang so lightly,
 Ere those golden hours had flown.

Give me back but for a moment,
 Those happy, happy days!
For the path we tread in manhood,
 Is a dim, bewildering maze;
The flowers that bloom the fairest,
 Are the earliest to decay;
And the joys we prize the dearest,
 Are the first to pass away.

But Oh! the hours of boyhood
 Fleet by on pinion's fair;
And the sunshine of untroubled hearts
 Makes constant summer there:
For care is but a phantom shade,
 To bosoms light and gay;
And sorrow comes, but in the cloud
 That dims a holyday.

Oh! gaily flew the butterfly
 I chased across the lea;
And but to catch the fluttering thing,
 Was joy enough for me,—
Alas! since then, I've followed far
 Full many a painted toy;
And found it like the gilded moth
 That lured the truant boy.

Oh! give me back my boyhood!
 Let me feel the keen delight
Of a kite upon the summer gale,
 Like an eagle in its flight,—
The bounding ball, the flying race,
 The arrow on the wing—
The old man's heart can vibrate still
 If memory touch the string.

I see the old green meadows,
 Where of yore I used to stray;
They have lost methinks their verdure,
 And my play-mates where are they?
The grass is green o'er many a brow,
 That wore no shadow then—
And the rest, have changed from merry boys,
 To strange, cold-hearted men.

Oh! give me back the feelings
 Of my early by-gone years!
Ere my heart had throbbed with sorrow,
 Or mine eye been dimmed with tears;
I would forget each present scene,
 And know again the joy
That blessed me in the golden days,
 When I was but a boy.