The poem below is not mine, but it is "original" in that I have the honor of introducing it to the world. It's an unpublished poem by Mary Hayden Green Pike, who was a member of the church I serve in eastern Maine and a nationally recognized author back in the 1800s. She was part of a local writing club at our church, and some of the literature of that club remains to us today, in a tattered, handwritten volume. This poem, adapted only slightly, is from that volume. This is a good season of the year to share it, because our little corner of the northeast can suffer from rather dreary weather in March and April, and the poet shares a sentiment that many of us here can relate to.
Clouds and Sunshine
Sing to me a merry song,
For the days are dark and dreary;
Now the rain falls thick and fast,
And my very soul is weary.
Heavily the clouds hang o'er us,
Blocking out the calm blue sky,
Where snow-white amid the azure
Little cloudlets softly lie.
Sing of sunshine and of flowers
On the mossy banks that grow,
Where 'mid thousand dewy wonders
Summer breezes gently blow.
Pleasant is thy voice, dear love,
As the sound of birds in spring
In the forest's dim recesses
And 'mid green fields caroling.
I will close my weary eyelids
And recall those fairy hours
When with childish joy we wandered
Over dewy beds of flowers.
Oh, how brightly fell the sunshine
On the swiftly gushing stream,
And upon its banks reclining
You and I shared happy dreams.
Dreams they were, yet many a vision,
Shadowing forth our future years,
Hath fulfilled itself around us,
Some in smiles, and some in tears.
Thoughtless, careless, merry-hearted,
There we shared our youthful bliss,
And the thought of that bright season
Takes away the gloom of this.
With these memories to cheer us,
We can bear the saddest hours,
Turning when life darkens 'round us
To the heart's sunshine and flowers.