Home
Fictions/Novels
Short Stories
Poems
Essays
Plays
Nonfictions
 
Authors
All Titles
 






In Association with Amazon.com

Home > Authors Index > Browse all available works of Madison Julius Cawein > Text of Ballad Of Sweethearts

A poem by Madison Julius Cawein

A Ballad Of Sweethearts

________________________________________________
Title:     A Ballad Of Sweethearts
Author: Madison Julius Cawein [More Titles by Cawein]

Summer may come, in sun-blonde splendor,
To reap the harvest that Springtime sows;
And Fall lead in her old defender,
Winter, all huddled up in snows:
Ever a-south the love-wind blows
Into my heart, like a vane asway
From face to face of the girls it knows--
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.

If Carrie smile or Maud look tender,
Straight in my bosom the gladness glows;
But scarce at their side am I all surrender
When Gertrude sings where the garden grows:
And my heart is a bloom, like the red rose shows
For her hand to gather and toss away,
Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes--
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.

Let Laura pass, as a sapling slender,
Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose,--
Or Blanche or Helen,--to each I render
The worship due to the charms she shows:
But Mary's a poem when these are prose;
Here at her feet my life I lay;
All of devotion to her it owes--
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.

How _can_ my heart of my hand dispose?
When Ruth and Clara, and Kate and May,
In form and feature no flaw disclose--
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.


[The end]
Madison Julius Cawein's poem: Ballad Of Sweethearts

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN