NINE years old! The first of any
⁠Seem the happiest years that come:—
⁠Yet when I was nine, I said
⁠No such word!—I thought, instead,
That the Greeks had used as many
⁠In besieging Ilium.

Nine green years had scarcely brought me
⁠To my childhood's haunted spring:—
⁠I had life, like flowers and bees,
⁠In betwixt the country trees;
And the sun, the pleasure, taught me
⁠Which he teacheth every thing.

If the rain fell, there was sorrow;—
⁠Little head, leant on the pane,
⁠Little finger drawing down it
⁠The long trailing drops upon it,—
And the "Rain, rain, come to-morrow,"
⁠Said for charm against the rain.