This simple child has claims
On your sentiment--her name's
Geraldine.
Be tender--but beware,
For she's frolicsome as fair,
And fifteen.
She has gifts that have not cloyed,
For these gifts she has employed,
And improved:
She has bliss which lives and leans
Upon loving--and that means
She is loved.
She has grace. A grace refined
By sweet harmony of mind:
And the Art,
And the blessed Nature, too,
Of a tender, and a true
Little heart.
And yet I must not vault
Over any little fault
That she owns:
Or others might rebel,
And might enviously swell
In their zones.
She is tricksy as the fays,
Or her pussy when it plays
With a string:
She's a goose about her cat,
And her ribbons--and all that
Sort of thing.
These foibles are a blot,
Still she never can do what
Is not nice,
Such as quarrel, and give slaps--
As I've known her get, perhaps,
Once or twice.
The spells that move her soul
Are subtle--sad or droll--
She can show
That virtuoso whim
Which consecrates our dim
Long-ago.
A love that is not sham
For Stothard, Blake, and Lamb;
And I've known
Cordelia's sad eyes
Cause angel-tears to rise
In her own.
Her gentle spirit yearns
When she reads of Robin Burns--
Luckless Bard!
Had she blossomed in thy time,
How rare had been the rhyme
--And reward!
Thrice happy then is he
Who, planting such a Tree,
Sees it bloom
To shelter him--indeed
We have sorrow as we speed
To our doom!
I am happy having grown
Such a Sapling of my own;
And I crave
No garland for my brows,
But peace beneath its boughs
Till the grave.
"O DOMINE DEUS,
"O DOMINE DEUS,
SPERAVI IN TE,
O CARE MI JESU,
NUNC LIBERA ME."
Her quiet resting-place is far away,
None dwelling there can tell you her sad story:
The stones are mute. The stones could only say,
"A humble spirit passed away to glory."
She loved the murmur of this mighty town,
The lark rejoiced her from its lattice prison;
A streamlet soothes her now,--the bird has flown,--
Some dust is waiting there--a soul has risen.
No city smoke to stain the heather bells,--
Sigh, gentle winds, around my lone love sleeping,--
She bore her burthen here, but now she dwells
Where scorner never came, and none are weeping.
O cough! O cruel cough! O gasping breath!
These arms were round my darling at the latest:
All scenes of death are woe--but painful death
In those we dearly love is surely greatest!
I could not die. HE willed it otherwise;
My lot is here, and sorrow, wearing older,
Weighs down the heart, but does not fill the eyes,
And even friends may think that I am colder.
I might have been more kind, more tender; now
Repining wrings my bosom. I am grateful
No eye can see this mark upon my brow,
Yet even gay companionship is hateful.
But when at times I steal away from these,
And find her grave, and pray to be forgiven,
And when I watch beside her on my knees,
I think I am a little nearer heaven.