Watch the dewdrops in the morning,
Shake their little diamond heads,
Sparkling, flashing, ever moving,
From their silent little beds.
See the grass! Each blade is brightened,
Roots are strengthened by their stay;
Like the dewdrops, let us scatter
Gems of love along the way.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on August 16, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets.
Without your showers, I breed no flowers,
Each field a barren waste appears;
If you don't weep, my blossoms sleep,
They take such pleasures in your tears.
As your decay made room for May,
So I must part with all that’s mine:
My balmy breeze, my blooming trees
To torrid suns their sweets resign!
O’er April dead, my shades I spread:
To her I owe my dress so gay—
Of daughters three, it falls on me
To close our triumphs on one day:
Thus, to repose, all Nature goes;
Month after month must find its doom:
Time on the wing, May ends the Spring,
And Summer dances on her tomb!
First published in the Freeman's Journal where it was signed Philadelphia, April 16, 1787.