The blossoms are gone from the garden,
But ’tis not of them I would speak;
I want a sweet rose for my verses
Like one that’s in somebody’s cheek.
A red rose to kiss and to fondle,
Whose leaves will not wither or die--
To gladden each moment and banish
The winter thoughts out of the sky.
I want a low ripple of music
To flow through these lines of my choice,
Like a zephyr that moved through the summer,
Now dwelling in somebody’s voice;
A song that will be full of fragrance
So sweet that its magic of words
Will bring back the balm of the June time,
Its memories glad, and the birds.
The skies are so sunless and dreary,
Unless I can find a deep blue
To mix with the clouds of November
They’ll still wear the dark, sober hue;
But memory shows a bright heaven
Reflected in somebody’s eye,
And, thinking to-day of its beauty,
The grey becomes blue in the sky.
My dear little friend of the summer,
Did you think in the meshes of song
Your sweet, rosy face would be tangled
By a memory cunning and strong?
That the eyes looking now on this pattern
Would find it so easy to trace?
And delight as I do in its beauty--
The beauty of somebody’s face?
Good-bye, Maggie.
Good-bye, Maggie, I must leave you,
Far away from you I roam,
Far away from friends and loved ones,
And your pretty cottage home.
O’er my soul a twilight gathers,
That is deep’ning into night,
But from out the shadowy distance
Shines a soft, familiar light.
It is memory’s beacon lantern,
O’er it arching is your name;
Round it recollections cluster,
As the moth about the flame.
Though the future tries to cheat us,
Throwing many miles between,
Brighter burns the little taper
As the distance intervenes.
Good-bye, Maggie, will you miss me?
Absence conquers many a heart,
Plucks the roses from the garland,
Tears the evergreen apart;
Enters at the open lattice,
As a guest unbidden not,
Draws the curtain o’er the window,
Writes upon the door--“Forgot.”
Oh! what mean these idle sayings,
And whence come these idle fears?
As I fold you to my bosom
On my face I feel your tears;
Tears--they are a silent language
That interpret best the heart,
And I love you for them, darling--
Good-bye, Maggie, we must part.
The Hermit’s Farewell.
Farewell, that sad and bitter word
It stirs my soul to-night,
As I sit crouching in my cave
Above the faggot’s light;
Strange, ghostly figures dance and flit
Along the cold, damp walls;
The black snake glares his drowsy eyes,
And from his dungeon crawls.
The toad croaks near my humble fire,
Is loth to hop away,
And knows that ne’er again for him
Will I in ambush lay;
The bats flit idly to and fro,
The mice romp through my cell,
And e’en the wind that moans without
Repeats that word--farewell.
I move, and think ’tis some weird dream
Then mutter “’tis my brain;”
For here around my throbbing brow
Seems clamped a heavy chain,
And like a prisoner doomed to die
To-morrow at the stake,
I count the hours as they fly,
And dread the morning’s break.
For friends will come to lead me forth,
Through frescoed hall and room,
To homes where kindred ties await;
I fear the hermit’s doom.
They’ve tempted me--I fain would rest
Here on the dungeon mould,
Than dream on beds where curtains swing
With sunbeams in each fold.
For beasts and birds and creeping things
Have owned me as their guest,
When man would turn me from his door
With cruel word or jest;
And as I served my scanty meal,
In supplicating lays,
The cricket and the katydid
Would join my evening praise.
God pitied me, my loneliness
He made a sweet content;
I found companions in the stars
That from the heavens bent;
His flowers were friends, the golden rod
Smiled in its yellow hood,
A sentinel about my door
The purple thistle stood.
But look! the morning’s amber hue
Steals on the Easter skies,
Farewell! farewell! when Death has closed
These dim and longing eyes,
In peace to slumber here entombed,
Will be the boon I crave,
And those who spurned The Hermit’s home
Shall shun The Hermit’s grave.
A Window I Love.
There’s an old-fashioned building somewhere in the town
That looks on a noisy street,
And no matter how often I pass up and down,
At the window sweet faces I meet.
Little faces that lit’rally beam on the street,
Untutored in Life’s trying school,
That seem fashioned, my friends, as if just to repeat
For our lesson the sweet, golden rule.
Oft they give us a smile, when a frown we return
A kiss prompts the pout of their lip,
And though we go by with a step proud and stern,
How lightly beside us they trip!
Catching the leaves that drift in at the door,
Those pretty leaves rusted with rain,
That sigh with our hearts when the summer is o’er,
And that seem to wear traces of pain.
There is many a window with drapings of lace,
Where the clematis bloom is entwined,
Where the moss seems a part of the urn and the vase,
Where the awning with satin is lined,
Where Wealth sits aloof--garments dripping with pearls
Like a Mermaid’s--sole god of the sphere,
But the faces I love with their billows of curls
You must ne’er think of looking for here.
For the window I love has no hangings of plush,
Neither festooned as if for display,
And yet I have seen it at evening’s soft hush
Decked out in a wond’rous array
Of cambrics and calicoes, sashes and curls,
Little aprons and many a toy--
More plainly to speak--there are three little girls,
And the king of the house is a boy.
How I love to halt here! With a satisfied look,
I have watched Corinne smoothing a curl,
I have seen little Richard lean over his book,
I have heard Mary singing with Pearl.
And O! I have thanked them again and again
For the problems of patience and love
That they solve unawares for my less practiced brain
When I pause by the window I love.