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would you?
WOULD YOU?
COULD you keep the tints of spring
On the woods in misty brightness;
Keep the half-veiled boughs a-swing
To the linnet's flitting lightness;
Through the birch leaves' rippling green
Hold the maple-keys from dropping;
On the sward with May-showers clean,
Cheat the violets into stopping;

Could you make the rosebud's lips
Vow to be a bud forever;
From the sedges' wavering tips,
Bid the pendent dewdrop never;
Could you make the sunrise hour
For a lifetime overbrood you;
Could you change the year's full dower
For its first faint promise,—would you?

Though joy beads the cup we quaff,
Bubbling from the fount of morning,