Joys of Youth

How pleasing simplest recollections seem!
Now summer comes, it warms me to look back
On the sweet happiness of youth's wild track,
Varied and fleeting as a summer dream:
Here have I paus'd upon the sweeping rack
That specks like wool-flocks through the purple sky;
Here have I careless stooped down to catch
The meadow flower that entertain'd my eye;
And as the butterfly went whirring by,
How anxious for its settling did I watch;
And oft long purples on the water's brink
Have tempted me to wade, in spite of fate,
To pluck the flowers.—Oh, to look back and think,
What pleasing pains such simple joys create!