- Blessings on thee, little man,
- Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
- With thy turned-up pantaloons,
- And thy merry whistled tunes;
- With thy red lip, redder still
- Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
- With the sunshine on thy face,
- Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;
- From my heart I give thee joy,—
- I was once a barefoot boy!
- Prince thou art,—the grown-up man
- Only is republican.
- Let the million-dollared ride!
- Barefoot, trudging at his side,
- Thou hast more than he can buy
- In the reach of ear and eye,—
- Outward sunshine, inward joy:
- Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
- Oh for boyhood’s painless play,
- Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
- Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
- Knowledge never learned of schools,
- Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
- Of the wild-flower’s time and place,
- Flight of fowl and habitude
- Of the tenants of the wood;
- How the tortoise bears his shell,
- How the woodchuck digs his cell,
- And the ground-mole sinks his well;
- How the robin feeds her young,
- How the oriole’s nest is hung;
- Where the whitest lilies blow,
- Where the freshest berries grow,
- Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
- Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine;
- Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
- Mason of his walls of clay,
- And the architectural plans
- Of gray hornet artisans!
- For, eschewing books and tasks,
- Nature answers all he asks;
- Hand in hand with her he walks,
- Face to face with her he talks,
- Part and parcel of her joy,—
- Blessings on the barefoot boy!
- Oh for boyhood’s time of June,
- Crowding years in one brief moon,
- When all things I heard or saw,
- Me, their master, waited for.
- I was rich in flowers and trees,
- Humming-birds and honey-bees;
- For my sport the squirrel played,
- Plied the snouted mole his spade;
- For my taste the blackberry cone
- Purpled over hedge and stone;
- Laughed the brook for my delight
- Through the day and through the night,
- Whispering at the garden wall,
- Talked with me from fall to fall;
- Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
- Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
- Mine, on bending orchard trees,
- Apples of Hesperides!
- Still as my horizon grew,
- Larger grew my riches too;
- All the world I saw or knew
- Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
- Fashioned for a barefoot boy!
- Oh for festal dainties spread,
- Like my bowl of milk and bread;
- Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
- On the door-stone, gray and rude!
- O’er me, like a regal tent,
- Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
- Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
- Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
- While for music came the play
- Of the pied frogs’ orchestra;
- And, to light the noisy choir,
- Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
- I was monarch: pomp and joy
- Waited on the barefoot boy!
- Cheerily, then, my little man,
- Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
- Though the flinty slopes be hard,
- Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
- Every morn shall lead thee through
- Fresh baptisms of the dew;
- Every evening from thy feet
- Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
- All too soon these feet must hide
- In the prison cells of pride,
- Lose the freedom of the sod,
- Like a colt’s for work be shod,
- Made to tread the mills of toil,
- Up and down in ceaseless moil:
- Happy if their track be found
- Never on forbidden ground;
- Happy if they sink not in
- Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
- Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
- Ere it passes, barefoot boy!
