Come, little maid, from youthful days,
And let me paint you as you stood;
Your braided hair, your coyish ways,
That would and would not when I would.

Your gown of checkered calico,
The tire of pink, I see them yet;
Your little shoes not made for show,
The clean and scalloped pantalet.

I played with you in sun and shade,
By roadside, yard, and alder streams;
With many a brake and birch we made
The woven house of fairy beams,

Wherein we lived but for a day;
A sweeter spot on newer ground
Allured us in the wooded way,
And all was new we newly found.

We knew not love, we knew not jar,
All things created but for toys;
The world a just illumined star,
And full of little girls and boys.

Nothing was small to our great eyes,
Nothing so common but we wondered;
One penny was a boundless prize
To us, and five a little hundred.

The nearest hills were mountains then.
The meadow endless where we played ;
I never thought to be like men.
And always should the maid be maid.

But now I am a man become,
And you a woman grave and sweet;
And I no longer lead you home,
Or in the brook bathe your pink feet.

What have we now that 's like the past?
Our guileless hearts knew not its name;
But blest are we to know at last
That what it was, 't is still the same.