1836-1889.
_NO AND YES._
If I could choose my paradise,
And please myself with choice of bliss,
Then I would have your soft blue eyes
And rosy little mouth to kiss!
Your lips, as smooth and tender, child,
As rose-leaves in a coppice wild.
If fate bade choose some sweet unrest,
To weave my troubled life a snare,
Then I would say "her maiden breast
And golden ripple of her hair;"
And weep amid those tresses, child,
Contented to be thus beguiled.
_AT ALTENAHR._
1872.
_Meet we no angels, Pansie?_
Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet,
In white, to find her lover;
The grass grew proud beneath her feet,
The green elm-leaves above her:--
Meet we no angels, Pansie?
She said, "We meet no angels now;"
And soft lights streamed upon her;
And with white hand she touched a bough;
She did it that great honour:--
What! meet no angels, Pansie?
O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes
Down-dropped brown eyes so tender!
Then what said I?--Gallant replies
Seem flattery, and offend her:--
But,--meet no angels, Pansie?
_MARIT._
1869-70.
_C'est un songe que d'y penser._
My love, on a fair May morning,
Would weave a garland of May:
The dew hung frore, as her foot tripped o'er
The grass at dawn of the day;
On leaf and stalk, in each green wood-walk,
Till the sun should charm it away.
Green as a leaf her kirtle,
Her bodice red as a rose:
Her white bare feet went softly and sweet
By roots where the violet grows;
Where speedwells azure as heaven,
Their sleepy eyes half close.
O'er arms as fair as the lilies
No sleeve my love drew on:
She found a bower of the wildrose flower,
And for her breast culled one:
And I laugh and know her breasts will grow
Or ever a year be gone.
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O sweet dream, wrought of a dear fore-thought,
Of a golden time to fall!
She seemed to sing, in her wandering,
Till doves in the elm-tops tall
Grew mute to hear; as her song rang clear
How love is the lord of all.
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