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All For Me

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

All for me the bumble-bee
   Drones his song in the perfect weather;
And, just on purpose to sing to me,
   Thrush and blue-bird came North together.
Just for me, in red and white,
   Bloom and blossom the fields of clover;
And all for me and my delight
   The wild Wind follows and plays the lover.

The mighty sun, with a scorching kiss
   (I have read, and heard, and do not doubt it)
Has burned up a thousand worlds like this,
   And never stopped to think about it.
And yet I believe he hurries up
   Just on purpose to kiss my flowers—
To drink the dew from the lily-cup,
   And help it to grow through golden hours.

I know I am only a speck of dust,
   An individual mite of masses,
Clinging upon the outer crust
   Of a little ball of cooling gases.
And yet, and yet, say what you will,
   And laugh, if you please, at my lack of reason,
For me wholly, and for me still,
   Blooms and blossoms the Summer season.

Nobody else has ever heard
   The story the Wind to me discloses;
And none but I and the humming-bird
   Can read the hearts of the crimson roses.
Ah, my Summer—my love—my own!
   The world grows glad in your smiling weather;
Yet all for me, and me alone,
   You and your Court came North together.
Online text © 1998-2013 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Poems of Cheer | Gay and Hancock, 1914
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