The Cherry - A poem by James Wilkinson

The Cherry.

With measured cadence's soft vibration,
Silently and one by one;
In deepened sighs to awe relation:
And a cherry's mission is done.

Still more silently, the breathing
Of a peaceful zephyr calmed to sleep,
Tranquilly hushes; the boughs cease wreathing,
And a cherry its vigils keep.

A bird in a neighboring thicket
Is flinging a paean sincere;
Filled with praises of quality in cricket,
And a cherry blushes to hear.

In silence his notes seek an echo,
Hoping that accepted they might be;
Still silence is the price of his gusto,
And a cherry's thanks are free.

Now a sunbeam warm is tendered,
By the grateful aid of a leaf;
Hope to a fainting heart is rendered,
And a cherry is robbed of grief.

A cool but effeminate moment,
A passion with hasty words spoken,
Rends a tie by purity lent;
And a cherry's heart is broken.

A single experience has each little cherry,
Of sunshine and joy, of tempest and pain;
Yet as we, tho' all things bury,
The germ of our nature liveth again.

^__James Wilkinson.

Hours in Dreamland
James Wilkinson
(Buffalo: The Peter Paul Book Company. 1896)
Pages 98-99