GLIMPSES OF CHILDHOOD: 4. EARLY LOVES by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON

I MIND me of a maid with tawny hair
That grew in somber glory round her head;
And of another maid -- long since she's dead --
Sunnily fair.
And oh, I loved them both when I was ten!
They, being angels, had no age like men.

Touching their hands, I trembled with delight,
Their voices blent to music in mine ear;
Together or apart, they were so dear,
By day or night,
It turned me sick with rapture, if they leant
Momently down to me with kind intent.

They dubbed me "little sweetheart," I recall,
And with each other vied to give me joy;
For they were women grown, I but a boy,
Their humble thrall.
My love was desperate-earnest, holy and high
The passion that I nursed beneath the sky.

So, when they were betrothed, and I must know
The transiency that dooms all loves of earth,
It seemed a curious, bitter, second birth
Into man's woe.
"They're mine no more, they're mine no more," I said,
A ten-year-old lamenting for his dead.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...