Page:The complete poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.pdf/63

 How flashed the spray as we plunged in,— Pure gems that never caused a sin!
 * When you and I were young, my boy,
 * When you and I were young.

When you and I were young, we heard
 * All sounds of Nature with delight,—
 * The whirr of wing in sudden flight,

The chirping of the baby-bird.
 * The columbine's red bells were rung;
 * The locust's vested chorus sung;
 * While every wind his zithern strung

To high and holy-sounding keys, And played sonatas in the trees—
 * When you and I were young, my boy,
 * When you and I were young,

When you and I were young, we knew
 * To shout and laugh, to work and play,
 * And night was partner to the day

In all our joys. So swift time flew
 * On silent wings that, ere we wist,

The fleeting years had fled unmissed;
 * And from our hearts this cry was wrung—

To fill with fond regret and tears The days of our remaining years—
 * "When you and I were young, my boy,
 * When you and I were young."

in my heart that aches with the repression,
 * And strives with plenitude of bitter pain,

There lives a thought that clamors for expression,
 * And spends its undelivered force in vain.

What boots it that some other may have thought it?
 * The right of thoughts' expression is divine;

The price of pain I pay for it has bought it,
 * I care not who lays claim to it—'t is mine!

And yet not mine until it be delivered;
 * The manner of its birth shall prove the test.

Alas, alas, my rock of pride is shivered—
 * I beat my brow—the thought still unexpressed.