Poems (Larcom)/Would You?

by Lucy Larcom

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,
When the world is all a laugh,
 And a welcome without warning;
At life's Cana-feast, the guest,
 Lingering on with thirst unsated,
Finds a later draught the best:
 Miracles,—when thou hast waited!

Thought must shade and sun the soul
 With its glorious mutations;
Every life-song is a whole
 Sweeter for its variations.
Wherefore with your bliss at strife?
 'T was an angel that withstood you.
Could you change your perfect life
 For a dream of living,—would you?