Poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Two Junes

She sat, with her young-old face,
And her form of blighted grace,
And looked with her sad, unseeing eyes,
On the green June earth and the blue June skies;
And she moaned and sang in an undertone,
A song of Junes to her heart alone.

"The was a June, Oh, ages past!
When the days were flooded with golden light.
And the moments flitted away too fast,
  My heart was so happy from morn till night.
That was the June of '74.
  Strange how this can be '75!
It is fully a hundred years ago
  Since that sweet June was alive.

Why, then I had scarcely wept a tear,
  And now I have wept my tears all dry;
One could not weep so much in a year--
  It must be longer since June went by.
Yet this is '75, they say,
  And that was '74, I know;
But it seems, on looking back to-day,
  Ages and ages ago.

Why, then I was just in my youth's glad prime;
  And now I am old in heart and face.
Could one grow old in a year's short time,
  And lose all beauty and youth and grace?
Yet this, they say, is '75,
  And I know it was '74 when
He--yes, I must have been alive
  One hundred years since then.

Love and laughter made all things fair;
  Joy sat by me with folded wing;
Now each day is a blank despair--
  How could a year change everything?
Some one has figured the calendar wrong--
  This must be 1975,
And 101 years have dragged along
  Since that sweet June was alive." 

1. The Birth of the Orchid
2. The Call (All wantonly in hours of joy)
3. Be Not Attached
4. Behold the Earth
5. The Black Charger

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