The Wild Teenager
Wild teen and your mild growth spurt,
Hid in the tumultuous, busy school,
Untouched your honeyed blossoms grew,
Unseen your young fingers fool:
No roving bully will crush you here,
No busy body provokes a tear.
By Nature’s self in flesh arrayed,
She asks you to shun the wanting eye,
And sat here in the great oak’s shade,
And heard the bubbling brook go by;
Thus murmuring the summer goes,
Your days without rest fly.
Filled with the energy that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They fell asleep – neither were they more awake,
The children that from Eden bloom;
Unpitying time, and Age’s power
Shall leave no visage of this youth.
From early morning the sun rose
This is from where you came:
If from nothing, you’ve nothing to lose,
For at death you are the same;
The flash between is but an hour
Recapturing the light of a teen.
[Based on The Wild Honey Suckle by Philip Freneau (1786)]
