Select Poetry.

Colonist, Issue 88, 24 August 1858, Page 4

Select Poetry.

By G. 11. Emerson

WE WERE BOYS AKD GIRLS TOGETHER

We were boys and girls together, In -that happy, happy time, When the spirits light shone brightest, And the heart was in its prime; Ere the morning light was clouded, That beamed upon our youth, Ere the chill of worldly knowledge Had blighted childhood's truth.

We were boys and girls together, When the step was firm and light, When the voice was clear and ringing, And the laughing eyes were bright; Then our love sought no concealment, And our bosoms knew no art, Then the sunshine of our childhood Cast no shadow on the heart.

We aro boys and girls no longer, But the earnest cares of life Have lft the traces on us Of the sorrow and the strife; The flowers we plucked have wither'd, The dimpled smiles have fled, And the budding hopes we cherished Havo vanished with the dead.

But as the proud stream shadows The rays that lightly glanced Upon the tiny streamlet That in their gleaming danced ; So the soul of earnest manhood Eetains the features mild, That shed a loving beauty On the spirit of the child.

Other young ones are nround us, Other voices ringing sweet, We hear their joyous laughter, Arid the echo of their feet; Oh, 'childhood never dieth, And beauty ne'er will wane; In the fair ones that we gaze on, We are boys and girls again.