TO---
I judge not hardly childhood's giddy glee;
For I remember when my mother died,
Half-wondering at that age what death might be,
How few the tears I shed. And when they hied
To shape her garden-grave (use,sanctified
Among the dwellers of our tropic isle)
Where tamarind and orange, side by side,
Wove brightest bower, I too was there the while;
If moist-eyed 'mid the sad, yet curious more
Than sorrowful. But when the blasted rock,
Impracticable else, shook off a store
Of fruit, down raining at the nitrous shock,
On rushed I, with a childish joy, to seize
My spoil, the fruit of those grave-shadowing trees.
