Poem: “The Happiest Days” by Edgar A. Guest

A Heap o’ Livin’

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American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’
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The Happiest Days

  You do not know it, little man,
  In your summer coat of tan
  And your legs bereft of hose
  And your peeling, sunburned nose,
  With a stone bruise on your toe,
  Almost limping as you go
  Running on your way to play
  Through another summer day,
  Friend of birds and streams and trees,
  That your happiest days are these.

  Little do you think to-day,
  As you hurry to your play,
  That a lot of us, grown old
  In the chase for fame and gold,
  Watch you as you pass along
  Gayly whistling bits of song,
  And in envy sit and dream
  Of a long-neglected stream,
  Where long buried are the joys
  We possessed when we were boys.

  Little chap, you cannot guess
  All your sum of happiness;
  Little value do you place
  On your sunburned freckled face;
  And if some shrewd fairy came
  Offering sums of gold and fame
  For your summer days of play,
  You would barter them away
  And believe that you had made
  There and then a clever trade.

  Time was we were boys like you,
  Bare of foot and sunburned, too,
  And, like you, we never guessed
  All the riches we possessed;
  We’d have traded them back then
  For the hollow joys of men;
  We’d have given them all to be
  Rich and wise and forty-three.
  For life never teaches boys
  Just how precious are their joys.

  Youth has fled and we are old.
  Some of us have fame and gold;
  Some of us are sorely scarred,
  For the way of age is hard;
  And we envy, little man,
  You your splendid coat of tan,
  Envy you your treasures rare,
  Hours of joy beyond compare;
  For we know, by teaching stern,
  All that some day you must learn.

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American Literature – American Poetry – Edgar A. Guest – Poems by Edgar A. Guest – A Heap o’ Livin’

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