Dedication

By Helen Hunt Jackson

When children in the summer weather play,
Flitting like birds through sun and wind and rain
From road to field, from field to road again,
Pathetic reckoning of each mile they stray
They leave in flowers forgotten by the way;
Forgotten, dying, but not all in vain,
Since, finding them, with tender smiles, half pain,
Half joy, we sigh, Some child passed here to-day.
Dear one, -- whose name I name not lest some tongue
Pronounce it roughly, -- like a little child
Tired out at noon, I left my flowers among
The wayside things. I know how thou hast smiled,
And that the thought of them will always be
One more sweet secret thing 'twixt thee and me.