To tell me that she’d cried an’ cried,
A thinkin’ of the times that she
Had scolded Jack an’ scolded me,
An’ other things that I won’t tell
To anyone, because--O, well,
Boys can’t do much, but they can hold
Tight on to secrets till they’re old.
She’s Jack’s relation, that’s why she
Feels kind of lovin’ like to me,
But when she called me her own lad,
Oh, say, I felt just awful bad;
My head it went round in a whirl,
I up and cried just like a girl.
But say, if Jack did see us two
He laughed a little, don’t you know,
For if I’d ever brag around
That I’d lick some one, safe an’ sound,
He’d laugh an’ say, “Jim, hold your jaw!
You know your’re scared to death of maw.”
Oh! I’d give all this world away
If I could hear him laugh to-day,
I get so lonesome, it’s so still
An’ him out sleepin’ on that hill;
For nothin’ seems just worth the while
A-doin’ up in the old style,
Cause everything we used to do
Seemed always jus’ to need us two.
My throat aches till I think ’twill crack,
I don’t know why--it must be Jack.
There ain’t no fun, there ain’t no stir,
His mother--well ’tis hard on her,
But she can knit, and sew, and such--
Oh, she can’t miss him half so much!
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
A Pledge.
I sit alone, to-night--to-day our two roads meet,
You helped me find the right, and I will not forget;
I’m pledged to do my best with lips that will not lie,
To strive with mind and heart as all the days go by.
You looked so strong and bold when all was done and said--
You have a heart of gold--and I have one of lead--
Some day I’ll climb the height, if fortune fair betide,
I only know to-night the world is strangely wide.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
Blue Eyed Bess.
But let us argue for a space
Before we say that long good-bye,
Now heaven grant us store of grace,
We are so human, you and I.
Full well you know the old time way
Will easiest seem unto our feet,
Full well you know with yesterday
No fair to-morrow may compete.
Then some day, Bess, we will be old,
Think you our hearts content will stay
With bleak December, or, grown bold,
Will they not race back into May?
Look not upon his acres wide,
But think how weary life would be,
Your body walking at his side,
Your soul back in the spring with me.
Why will you try to cheat poor love
Who only asks you for his own,
His blindness should compassion move,
Yet what compassion have you shown?
Say, “Love, take all I have to give,
For nothing would I keep from thee,
We’ll walk together while we live,
And thou shalt make the path for me.”
The pretty blush is on your face,
We will not say that long good-bye,
Now heaven grant us store of grace,
We are so human, you and I.
The Courtier’s Ladye
My ladye’s face is proud and fair,
My ladye’s eyes are grey,
She goeth out to take the air
On every sunny day.
My ladye wears a gown of blue
That falleth to her feet,
All broidered o’er with pearls like dew,
And daisies shy and sweet.
My ladye wears a hat of silk,
That fairy hands did spin,
And strings it hath as white as milk,
To tie beneath her chin.
My ladye wears upon her breast
A knot of ribbon gay,
But who her heart doth love the best--
My ladye will not say.
And, O, the jewels rich and rare
Do make the eye grow dim,
That sparkle in her powdered hair,
And on her fingers slim.
My ladye wears a satin shoe,
With silver buckle wide,
A tiny thing from heel to toe
That is my joy and pride.
My ladye wears upon her face
A little touch of scorn,
No fuller share of pride and grace
Hath any woman born.
My ladye’s face is sweet and fair,
My ladye’s eyes are grey,
She goeth out to take the air
On every sunny day.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
The Rustic’s Lassie
My lassie’s face is fair to see,
My lassie’s eyes are blue,
And always do they tell to me
Her heart is fond and true.
There’s silk, too, on my lassie’s head,
As yellow as the gold,
And woven is each shining thread
Into a braided fold.
But never fairy hands did spin
Silk like my lassie’s hair,
As for the strings beneath her chin
I would not have them there.
Lest one dear dimple growing shy
That everyone should see,
Within those silken strings would try
To hide itself from me.
My lassie wears a gown of white,
Which needs no pearls to deck,
With lace like cobweb, soft and light,
Full-gathered at her neck.
My lassie wears upon her breast
No knot of ribbon gay,
Forget-me-nots she loves the best,
Plucked at the dawn of day.
My lassie’s feet like two white mice
Go slipping through the grass,
And all the dew-drops think them nice,
And kiss them as they pass.
The satin shoe with buckle drest
Is richer, it may be,
But if the truth must be confest,
Not half so good to see.
My lassie’s face is fair to see,
My lassie’s eyes are blue,
And always do they tell to me
Her heart is fond and true.
Her Dower
One angel brought a birth-day gift,
Straight from the courts above,
“Now soft thy voice, and bright thy smile,
For I do give thee Love.”
Another came on snowy wings,
Tipped with a golden light,
“I bring the gift of Purity
To keep thy dear heart white.”
The third had music in his tones:
“I bring thee Courage, strong,
To guard both Love and Purity
From what would do them wrong.
“For tender feet must press the paths--
The crowded paths of life--
And tender souls must meet the shock
And din of passions strife.
“Walk thou unmoved through perils great,
While we thy strength applaud,
With Courage true I crown to-day
The fairest work of God.”
Mavourneen
So still you sleep upon your bed,
So motionless and slender,
It cannot be that you are dead,
My little maiden tender.
You were no creature pale and meek
That death should hasten after,
The red rose bloomed upon your cheek,
Your lips were made for laughter.
To you the great world was a place
That care might never stay in,
A playground built by God’s good grace
For happy folks to play in.
You made your footpath by life’s flowers,
O happy little maiden,
The sky was full of shine and showers,
The wind was perfume-laden.
I came and found you sweet and wild,
Love--only love--could tame you,
To think, O pretty thoughtless child
That greedy death must claim you.
Your dimpled hands are folded now
Above the snowy bosom,
The lilies creep and kiss your brow,
O tender broken blossom!
The white lids hide the eyes so clear,
So witching and beguiling,
But as my tears fall on you dear
Your lips seem softly smiling.
And do you feel that it is home,
The City we call heaven?
Ah! were they glad to have you come,
My little maid of seven?
Methinks when you stand all in white
To learn each sweet new duty,
Some eye will note with keen delight
Your radiance and beauty.
And when your laughter softly rings
Out where God’s streets do glisten,
The angels fair will fold their wings
And still their song to listen.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
Song of the Wind.
O Wind you come singing, singing,
Gaily about the eaves,
I think you are bringing, bringing,
The secret of the leaves;
Secrets you learned in the Maytime,
Down in the wood so cool,
Learned in the night-time and day-time,
By bank, and brook, and pool.
O wind, you go shrilling, shrilling,
Over the chimneys high,
While the clouds are softly spilling
Rain on the gardens dry:
’Tis autumn, the wild new-comer
Has taught you how to sing,
But the voice of the sweet dead summer
Through it all seems to ring.
O wind, you are railing, railing,
’Tis the voice of a shrew,
Wearied at length, and failing,
Then beginning anew:
Here you come sighing, sighing,
Down to my casement wide,
A moment and you are flying
Away in pique and pride.
I love your chasing and panting,
I love the melody,
That you go so gaily chanting
To earth, and sky, and sea.
Our birds go southward soaring,
When signs of frost appear,
You, with your sighing and roaring,
Sing to us all the year.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
The Richer Man
You know how it is--you have had the gain,
The sweetness and pleasures of life,
I the fruitless striving, the heat to attain,
The toil, the failure, the strife.
Then we chance to come by the will of fate
To the warmth of one woman’s eyes,
And fate decrees it is not too late
To give me a great surprise.
And the woman turns with matchless grace
The bloom of her tender cheek,
And her red lips smiling--her glorious face,
Her glance so loving and meek.
To me--to the penniless bankrupt one,
And I find my portion at last,
And heaven as real, when all is done,
As the hell of the bitter past.
The glories of earth are but chaff in the wind,
The riches of earth but a song,
Now listen, my brother, I think you will find
You have tried to do me a wrong.
You had all that to me had been denied,
I starved while you feasted well,
You have fame, and a hundred things beside,
You have watched your coffers swell.
Yet when we come by the will of fate
To the warmth of one woman’s eyes,
And fate declares it is not too late
To give me a great surprise.
You come with the weight of your yellow gold,
And the trappings of your success;
You come with your bearing, courtly and bold,
You woo in your haughtiness.
You try to dazzle her eyes of blue,
And you try to steal for yourself
The heart of a woman good and true,
Go, be content with your pelf.
Learn there are treasures you may not grasp,
Joys you must surely miss,
The hand you court lies in my clasp
The lips are my own to kiss.
A penniless fellow! you used to say--
Own to the truth if you can--
We stand here together this summer’s day,
And _I_ am the _richer_ man.
His Wife and Boy.
Love is a myth which men create from vapors of the heart and brain,
Thus far the poet grave did get, then from a smile could not refrain,
Someone was singing, he could hear
Each word so low and sweet and clear,
“By Baby Bunting!
Papa’s gone a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap the Baby-Bunting in.”
Right well he knew that picture fair
Might set a stoic’s heart aglow,
For it was such a bonnie pair,
So gently rocking to and fro.
The old song was a foolish thing,
Yet it seemed good to hear her sing,
“By Baby Bunting!
Papa’s gone a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit-skin
To wrap his Baby-Bunting in.”
The sunshine would be creeping down
Upon her hair of golden brown,
And farther yet that it might peep
At her awake, at him asleep,
And both were his to have and hold,
How runs the foolish song so old?
“By Baby-Bunting!
Papa’s gone a-hunting
To get a little rabbit-skin
To wrap the Baby-Bunting in.”
But he must to his hunting go,
A cloak this pen of his must win
As soft as silk and white as snow,
To wrap the Baby-Bunting in.
Strange that his poem deep and strong
Should wait upon a nursery song,
“By Baby-Bunting!
Papa’s gone a hunting,
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap the Baby-Bunting in.”
Love is a myth that men create
From vapors of the heart and brain,
O pen, I fear you lied of late!
Hark, softly rings the old refrain!
“By Baby-Bunting!
Papa’s gone a-hunting,
To get a little rabbit-skin
To wrap the Baby-Bunting in.”
She Just Keeps House For Me
She is so winsome and so wise
She sways us at her will,
And oft the question will arise
What mission does she fill?
And so I say with pride untold
And love beyond degree,
This woman with the heart of gold
She just keeps house for me--
For me,
She just keeps house for me.
A full content dwells in her face,
She’s quite in love with life,
And for a title, wears with grace
The sweet old-fashioned “Wife,”
And so I say with pride untold,
And love beyond degree,
This woman with the heart of gold
She just keeps house for me--
For me,
She just keeps house for me.
What though I toil from morn till night,
What though I weary grow,
A spring of love and dear delight
Doth ever softly flow,
And so I say with pride untold,
And love beyond degree,
The woman with the heart of gold
She just keeps house for me.
Our children climb upon her knee
And lie upon her breast,
And ah! her mission seems to me
The highest and the best,
And so I say with pride untold,
And love beyond degree,
This woman with the heart of gold
She just keeps house for me.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
Love’s Humility
“I love her, yes,” the younger of them said,
“I think her beautiful beyond compare;
How proudly does she carry that small head,
With all its wealth of silky night-black hair?
And then her warm red mouth--I see it now--
Was it not made for kisses? And her chin
So round and firm--the smooth unwrinkled brow,
Each cheek with such a cunning dimple in.
She is so piquant, winsome, fair, and good,
I could not choose but love her if I would.
“Did I not love her well, think you her charms
Would move my pulse in this delicious way,
And make me long to fold her in my arms,
Hold her love’s prisoner by night and day?
’Tis joy to think of her white-lidded eyes--
So full of dreams, so full of tender speech--
Her slender form--and yet, it were not wise
To be too rash--come, let your wisdom teach.
She is so piquant, winsome, fair, and good,
I could not choose but love her if I would.
“I fain would make her all my own, this maid,
I love her well, but would it be quite right
To risk so much? At times I grow afraid
To lift her up to such a dizzy height.
You know my prospects and you know my pride,
(It is a weighty matter to be wed)
And yet, I only know when at her side
That life is rich in joy and bliss,” we said.
“She is so piquant, winsome, fair, and good,
I could not choose but love her if I would.”
“I could not choose but love her if I would”
You boast, but if you loved her you would say,
“I would not choose but love her if I could,”
So answered him the old man, stern and gray.
“There’s passion in your words, but you have fears,
Your high position! Ah! you are afraid!
Boy, learn this truth from one of sober years,
The man who really, truly, loves a maid
Knows only two things well--no more, no less--
Her matchless worth--his own unworthiness.”
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
Our Host and His House
Nay, rail not, dear, at Time in such rude way,
’Tis scarcely fair, since he has been our host
For such a while. And rail not at the world,
This grey old ivy-covered manor-house wherein
He long has entertained us both. Since we
Have broken bread with him, danced in his halls,
Let us not talk of him in slighting way.
What though
He has not given lavishly,
For daily use, the rich things in his store?
Rare things grow common, quite, when they are used
In common way--you know this for yourself--
And delicacies lose their flavor when
The palate tires of them.
But ah, on state
Occasions has he not been prodigal?
O wine of life that he has poured for us!
Poured freely till it ran the goblet o’er,
And trickled down in little rosy streams!
Believe me, dear, for all his length of beard
So snowy white, his venerable air,
Enough of youth lurks in his bosom still
To make him lenient with foolishness.
For often has he stolen off and left
Us standing heart to heart,
And has he not
Sometimes, stilled all his house lest we should wake
Too soon from some wrapt dream of tenderness?
Then, too, for playthings he has given us hours
Filled full enough of rapture unalloyed
To cover every day of all the years
With common happiness if properly
Spread out.
As for this grey old world,
It is not half so murk, so wanting in
All light, all glow, and warmth, as some declare--
As we oft picture to ourselves, my dear,
It has its windows looking east and west,
It has its sunset and its morning gold;
The trouble is we _will_ look toward the east
At eventide, and toward the sombre west
When heaven is shaking down upon the world,
A lusty infant day. And so we miss
The glory of the sunset and the dawn.
The Mother’s Story
She told a wonderful story, the mother so fair and good,
Of the deep and strange old mystery men have never understood.
It was such a pretty story I wove it into a rhyme
To read to myself, when the skies were grey, at the end of summertime.
“Now listen,” she said, “my children, to every word that I say,
Dear Marjory, share the hearthrug with your restless sister May,
And you, my lad, with the great dark eyes, may share the couch with me,
While the baby-girl, with doll in arms, shall sit upon mother’s knee.
Your faces change as I carry your thoughts through the ebb and flow
Of someone’s joys, and someone’s hopes, and I love to watch the glow
In Marjory’s eyes as we talk of elves in their wild and wanton glee,
When they make the dim old forest ring with the sound of revelry.
But May cares only to listen when I tell some quaint home tale,
She likes a cot on a wooded hill, and flocks of sheep in the vale,
While you, my lad, with the dreamy eyes, you love the prose and
the rhyme,
The deeds of daring, the deeds of might, of good King Arthur’s time.
To-day May asked me a question, and I’ve pondered it for hours,
_God’s acre_, she said, _is full of bloom--do the dead folks turn
to flowers?_
There’s a tender story, my children, that may comfort you some day
When mother sleeps in God’s acre, and the flowers blossom gay.
The soft-voiced angels of Life and Love they whispered to Christ one day
We pray Thee that when one fair and good in the earth is laid away,
That we in the golden dawn may go alone where the sleeper lies,
And sing in the solemn silence the songs learned in Paradise.”
Answered Christ, “Go sing till comes springing up, up from the
sod beneath,
The lily, white as a ransomed soul, the rose with its fragrant breath.”
A silence fell on the little group, there were tears in Marjory’s eyes,
It was a wonderful story, and mother was O, so wise!
Then the wee girl clapped her dimpled hands, and said in her loving way,
“When you turn to a posy, mamma, I’ll water you every day.”
It was such a pretty story I wove it into a rhyme,
To read to myself, when the skies were grey, at the end of summertime.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
In Lover’s Lane
O, ranting bully with clamorous breath,
O, vandal, why come you down from the North
With frost in your breath, and wrath in your voice,
And force in your arms to level and toss?
You rush through the wood and threaten the trees--
The giants of oak, of beech, and of elm,
Playmates of yours ere age had o’ertaken,
Stolen their vigor, their sap, and their life.
The tender child-trees, the slender child-trees
You worry, you beat, you fling to the earth,
Lithe and supple are they to defy you,
Swiftly they spring up as soon as you pass,
Trembling a little with fear and anger,
But whole and unhurt--the slender young things!
Is it not enough that you bend and you break,
And make you a path wherever you go,
But you must enter this quiet old lane,
Shut out from the world by lattice of vines,
Where Eve, pretty Eve, so prim and demure
Is walking with someone, taking the air?
You rest behind them plotting new mischief,
Rest till a soft hush falls down on the world,
Rest till the growing things listen and laugh
Thinking you gone to your lair in the North,
Then you begin to stir and to mutter,
Growing in anger, till, big with your wrath,
On you come rushing--vandal how can you
Liberties take with a maiden so fair?
Eve, as you walk so primly beside him,
Keeping your distance, nor heeding his sighs.
Chin tilted forward, eyes straight before you,
Parasol swinging in one little hand,
Blue gown all flounces, ribbons a-flutter,
Dainty, and winsome, and proud as a queen!
There is no time--the boorish thing takes you--
You and your ruffles, your ribbons and curls,
You and your primness, your blushes, and airs,
Straight to the arms of the man at your side.
You have no conscience swaggering north wind,
Else would you hasten and leave them alone;
Why must you push her yet nearer to him?
Buffet and beat her--you ruffian strong!
She has to hide her face on his bosom,
While you go whirling in ecstasy round,
Then you loosen her bronze hair and fling it,
Warm and electric, up over his cheek,
Hair soft and shiny, full of allurement,
Tempting a mortal to feel of its gold.
Down you go soberly over the fields,
Making believe you have left them for good,
Driving the cattle and scaring the flocks,
Shaking the cedars that stand on the hill;
Then, when she loosens herself from his grasp,
Laughing and blushing, and red as a rose,
Back you come flying on mischief intent
Pleased to torment the fair maid in the lane.
Oh, how you buffet her, boor that you are!
Oh, how you flutter her garments abroad!
Clutch at her flounces, so pretty and neat!
Worry the ribbons that hang at her waist!
Then growing fiercer, you roar and you rage,
Whirling and twirling to show off your strength,
Pay no attention to prayer--or mishap--
Drive her to shelter again in his arms.
Watching so closely the glances she gives,
Wondering greatly how much she regrets,
All that has happened, since, prim and demure,
Out from the farmhouse she started at noon.
“Maidens are queer things,” you laugh to yourself,
“Hiding their faces and owning to naught;
Why must she whimper?
She’s glad to be there,
Glad to be holding so closely to him,
Glad to feel round her his care-taking arms,
Glad to be list’ning to all that he tells,
Glad that I rumpled her shiny bronze hair,
Making her fairer in somebody’s eyes;
Glad that I thrashed out her primness and pride,
Glad! she’ll not own it--mark her distress now--
Oh! but these maidens are curious things!”
Listen, old North Wind, listen and peer,
You have no manners, no conscience, no shame,
Words of the lovers you greedily seize--
Seize, and go shrieking them out to the world!
_She is an angel! so fair, and so tender!
Too good for mortal--the loveliest, best!_
O, you prying, inquisitive meddler!
One thing you miss though--the sweetest of all--
Not even a breath of love’s first warm kiss
Is wasted on you--O boor of the North!
O Last Days of the Year
“O last days of the year!” she whispered low,
“You fly too swiftly past. Ah, you might stay
Awhile, a little while, do you not know
What tender things you bear with you away?
I’m thinking, sitting in the soft gloom here,
Of all the riches that were mine the day
There crept down on the world the soft new year,
A rosy thing with promise filled--and gay.
But twelve short months ago! a little space
In which to lose so much--a whole life’s wealth
Of love and faith, youth, and youth’s tender grace--
Things that are wont to go from us by stealth.
Laughter and blushes, and the rapture strong,
The clasp of clinging hands, the burning kiss,
The joy of living, and the glorious song
That drew its sweetness from a full heart’s bliss.
O gladness great!
O wealth of tenderness!
That were my own one little year ago,
A bankrupt I--gone faith, gone warm caress,
Gone love, gone youth, gone _all_,”
She whispered low.
“O last days of the year!
You take away
The riches that I held so close and dear,
Go not so swiftly, stay a little--stay
With one poor bankrupt,
Last days of the year!”
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
Back on the Farm
I’ll tell you what I wish I was,
When days like these arrive,
An’ spring puts all her gewgaws on,
An’ all the world’s alive.
I wish I was a boy again--
A boy back on the farm--
A-watchin’ all the growin’ stuff,
An’ cowslips gettin’ warm.
A playin’ round the whole long day
As happy as a lark,
An’ never out of mischief once
From daylight until dark.
With such a lot of things to hear
An’ such a lot to see,
An’ my dog Rover at my heels,
To keep me company.
A watchin’ the big sun go down
Behind the tree-tops high,
An’ wishin’ I could climb the one
That reached up to the sky.
A-listenin’ to the katydids
A-jawin’ in the lane,
An’ sniffin’ up the earthy smell
That comes before a rain.
Laughin’ to see the white-wool’d sheep
Come skippin’ down the hill,
An’ feelin’ such a heap of joy
I couldn’t quite keep still.
An’ by-an’-by, a dozin’ off,
An’ wakin’ up to hear
My mother say: “Come in the house,
’Tis past your bedtime, dear.”
A longin’ takes me on these days
When all the world gets warm,
A-longin’ just to be a boy--
A boy back on the farm.
[Illustration: Decorative image unavailable.]
He Meditates on the Critic
“Criticism is a tonic,
Very healthy in effect,”
Wrote he, and my verse Byronic
Did most _ruthlessly_ reject.
He’s a villain--deep--politic--
Bitter things these tonics, all,
Manufactured by the critic
From his mighty store of gall.
Jacynth
“We have been something more than friends, Jacynth,
You know that well, yet now you say ‘my friend,
I give you welcome home,’ in such cold way
I scarce believe it is Jacynth who speaks--
Jacynth, who used to give--but let it pass.
The new year finds me with a heavy heart,
I come to seek the girl
I used to know,
The happy, trusting, tender girl, and lo--
I find her grown into a woman proud,
With richer dower of beauty for her own,
But far less lovable than my Jacynth.”
_Jacynth_:
“We both are changed, I think.”
_Derwent_:
“It is not so.
I am not of the sort that gets new friends
Like fashions for each season as it comes.”
_Jacynth_:
“Hark to the bells! a happy year, Derwent;
Give me your hand and wish as much for me.”