By Robert Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today,

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

 

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night,

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

 

And make us happy in the daring bird

That suddenly above the bees I heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

 

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfill.

Read at the Dedication of the John f. Kennedy Park, May 29, 1987, four days after my first child, Madelaine, was born.