It's out and away at break of day,
To frolic and run in the sun-sweet hay:
It's up and out with a laugh and shout
Let the old world know that a boy's about.
It's ho for the creek that the minnows streak,
That the sunbeams dapple, the cattle seek;
For a fishing-pole and a swimming-hole,
Where a boy can loaf and chat with his soul.
It's oh to lie and look at the sky
Through the roof of the leaves that's built so high:
Where all day long the birds make song,
And everything 's right and nothing is wrong.
It's hey to win where the breeze blows thin,
And watch the twinkle of feather and fin:
To lie all day and dream away
The long, long hours as a boy's heart may.
It's oh to talk with the trees and walk
With the winds that whisper to flower and stalk:
And it's oh to look in the open book
Of your own boy-dreams in some leafy nook.
Away from the noise of the town, and toys,
To dream the dreams that are dreamed by boys:
To run in the heat, with sun-tanned feet,
To the music of youth in your heart's young beat.
To splash and wade in the light and shade
Of the league-long ripples the sunbeams braid:
In boyhood's wise to see with eyes
Of fancy hued as the butterflies.
To walk for hours and learn the flowers,
And things that haunt the woods and bowers:
To climb to a nest on a tree's top crest,
Where a bird, like your heart, is singing its best.
To feel the rain on your face again,
Like the thirsty throats that the flowers strain:
To hear the call of the waterfall,
Like the voice of youth, a wonder-thrall.
And it's oh for me at last to see
The rainbow's end by the hillside tree:
On the wet hillside where the wild ferns hide,
Like a boy's bright soul to see it glide.
Then to laugh and run through shower and sun
In the irised hues that are arched and spun:
And, the rainbow's friend, to find and spend
The bag of gold at the rainbow's end.