A spray of lilac, and other poems and songs

Up and away!—up, up, and away!
The hedgerows are foaming with blossom to-day;
Its bonfires the golden gorse lights on the hill,
And the wanton wind’s wooing wherever it will.

Up and away!—up, up, and away!
The cuckoo’s name rings through the woodlands to-day;
The warm blood of Summer runs rioting through
The veins of each leaflet—then why not of you?

Up and away!—up, up, and away!
There’s Passion and Poetry stirring to-day.
Half blinded with rapture, the heavy bees dart
From the lily’s white breast to the rose’s red heart.

Up and away!—up, up, and away!
The old world’s begun a fresh courting to-day.
I wooed you all winter, but found you as cold
As the snowdrift that gleamed on the ridge of the wold.

Up and away!—up, up, and away!
Your eyes tell me “Yes,” though your lips say me “Nay.”
The tears, so long frost-bound, are ready to flow,
And she melts in my arms, my proud maiden of snow!

WEE ELSIE

O’ a’ the bonny wee bit lasses
That e’er I’ve kent, not ane surpasses
My Elsie.

An’ oh, she has sic denty ways,
Auld farrant a’ she does and says;
Just watch the bairnie as she plays
“At mither,” dressed in mither’s claes!

Like twa sweet rosebuds on ae stalk,
Her lips part in her guileless talk;
She hauds a key that wad unlock
Yer heart were’t hard as granite rock.

Sae fearless are her een o’ blue,
They seem tae look ye through an’ through;
But though sae brave, an’ frank, an’ true,
Wi’ happy fun they’re brimmin’ fu ’.

Adoun her shoulders floats her hair,
Sae long, sae silken, an’ sae fair,—
In truth it seems a verra snare
That’s caught an’ kept a sunbeam there.

But better faur, those graces meet
Aroun’ a nature just as sweet;
Methinks the bairnie is complete
Frae wise wee heed tae willin’ feet.

BIDE WI’ MITHER

Oh bide a wee, my bonny lass,
Nor seek to lea’ the auld hame-nest;
O’ a’ earth’s luvs ye yet will fin’
A mither’s highest is, an’ best.

She watched you like a rose unfauld,
She reads you like an open buik;
You scarce need speak, she is sae quick
Tae understan’ yer ev’ry luik.

The han’ that aye fan’ time tae pat
The wee bit face sae aft turned up
For “mither’s kiss,” has workit late
An’ early for your bite an’ sup.

An’ oh! it was a struggle sair
Tae mak’ twa unco scrimp en’s meet;
In her first days o’ weedowhood
She scarce could spare the time tae greet.

Oh dinna lea’ her yet awhile;
The laddie’s young, an’ he can wait;
There was a time, when you were wee,
She micht hae had anither mate.

But she was feert he micht na be
As guid’s the fayther you had lost;
An’ though she could hae boucht her ease,
She wad na’ dae it at the cost.

An’ noo she’s auld an’ growing frail,
Your strong young arm should be her stay;
Life’s dounward slope is hard eneuch,
Be yours the han’ tae smooth the way.

Oh, bide wi’ her, an’ you will fin’
That duty done brings sweet reward;
The Maister, Christ, pleased na’ Himsel’,
Although He was creation’s Lord!

CHILD ANGELS

Oh, there are happy angels
That go on missions sweet;
They have no wings to bear them,
Just little human feet.

When I had grown aweary,
And all my faith was dim,
’Twas one of them that led me,
And brought me back to Him.

When ’tween you and a loved one
There lay a widening breach,
And you were coldly drifting
Beyond each other’s reach,
A child’s hand ’twas that bridged it—
A child’s soft, rosy palm
Held both your souls united,
And life grew sweet and calm.

When sorrows closely gathered,
And heart and head were bowed,
The blue eyes of a baby
Made rifts in pain’s dark cloud.

Oh, happy, earth-born angels,
Who go on missions sweet,
If ye had wings to bear you,
Instead of little feet,

I fear me ye would use them,
Altho’ ye love us much,
To soar to Him who tells us
His “Kingdom is of such.”

MY LOVE OF LONG AGO

There are faces just as perfect;
There are eyes as true and sweet;
There are hearts as strong and tender
As the heart that’s ceased to beat;
There are voices just as thrilling;
There are souls as white, I know,
As hers was when she went from me—
My love of long ago.

New lips are ever telling
The tale that ne’er grows old;
Life’s greys are always changing
For some one into gold;
But amid the shine and shadow,
Amid the gloom and glow,
She walks with me, she talks with me—
My love of long ago.

When I think of all the changes
That the years to me have brought,
I am glad the world that holds her
Is the world that changes not.
And the same as when she left me,
She waits for me, I know—
My love on earth, my love in heaven,
My love of long ago.

IN SUMMER TIME

Daisies nod and blue-bells ring,
Streamlets laugh and song birds sing,
To the clover bees close cling.

Cornfields wave their locks of gold,
Poppies burn and wings unfold,
Earth-stars twinkle on the mould.

Butterflies—live blossoms, blown
From that Eden once our own—
Make of every flower a throne.

And a royal purple dyes
Yonder heather-hill, that lies
Fitting footstool for the skies.

And the gorse is all ablaze,
Lighting up the moorland ways,
And the days are golden days.

E’en the myriad-mooded sea
(Earth-bound, yet than earth more free)
Wears a look of constancy.

And your love, that in the spring
Was a shy, uncertain thing,
Like a bud just blossoming,

With the summer’s growth has grown,
Till our two lives, lived as one,
Make a summer of their own.

TWIN-SISTERS

Two girls—before me now they stand,
Twin tender rosebuds, hand in hand,
Fashioned as one—scarce known apart;
I see each face, God sees each heart.

I look on ripe red lips, and eyes
That hold the blue of summer skies,
And hair like finest gold refined;
I see the beauty, God the mind.

In womanhood’s first faint sweet dawn
Oh! they are fair to look upon;
Perfect from crown to dainty foot;
I see the bloom, God sees the fruit.

What though a rose is each soft cheek,
If theirs be not that spirit meek?
What though their eyes are heaven’s own hue,
If never wet with pity’s dew?

The plainest casket may enshrine
A gem that will for ever shine.
Oh, may this outward beauty be
But type of inward purity!

God grant when Time its tale hath told,
And backward swing the gates of gold,
Before the Master they may stand,
Twin tender rosebuds hand in hand!

AT LAST

She is waiting for his coming,
As she waited long ago,
Ere her sweet eyes were pain-haunted
Or her hair was touched with snow;
Ere that look of patient pathos
Downward curved her tender lips,
Or across her life’s young morning
Fell a shadow of eclipse.

He is coming—but his footsteps
Know not now youth’s bounding grace,
And a world of sin and suffering
Is recorded in his face;
Airy dreams of high ambition
That he cherished in the past—
All have vanished—and aweary
He returns to her at last.

In the old familiar garden
Where he first breathed love’s fond vow,
With new hopes, like the new roses
Sprung from old roots, they stand now;
And the past is past for ever,
She forgives, and he forgets,
For the present peace has buried
Years of sorrows and regrets.

TRYSTING-TIME

’Tis only when the wooing west
Has drawn the tired sun to her breast,
I seek my darling’s place of rest.

In twilight-time we used to meet—
Ah me, how lag our listless feet
When we have but a grave to greet!

And yet, this daisy-dappled grave
So like a soft white-crested wave
Is all beneath the skies I have.

On broken wings the years have flown,
Oh love, since in the long agone
I left you sleeping here alone!

BESIDE THE DEAD

Touch not her hand, let not your tear-drops stain
The show-white purity of her dead brow;
Withhold your lips, their passion or their pain
Can thrill her nor with love nor pity now.

The empty years that followed your farewell—
The joyless dawns, the nights that brought no rest
Are ended,—and those weary eyelids fell
O’er eyes that had grown dim in one vain quest.

Thank God for this; her woman’s faith remained
Steadfast, unshaken to the very last,
And with her idol undefaced, unstained,
To place it in a “niche in Heaven” she passed.

But yesterday, your lightest whispered word
Had thrilled her heart, as spring’s first breath awakes
The rapture in the bosom of a bird
Till winter’s silence with a song he breaks.

And I,—whose love for her was purified
In the fierce crucible of human pain,
Had felt that I was more than satisfied
If loss of mine had ended in her gain.

For her soul’s sustenance you only left
The memory of a lightly plighted vow,
To take one kiss from those dead lips were theft,
The jewel was yours,—I claim the casket now.

HER FIRST SEASON

Cloud-like laces softly float
Round a dainty snow-white throat—
Fastened here and flutt’ring there
With a careless cunning care;
Blue-bells, blue as summer skies are.
Or her own sweet sunny eyes are,
Cluster close beneath her chin,
As if love—and not a pin—
Kept them fondly nestling in!

Gown of some transparent thing,
Like a dragonfly’s clear wing
Full of whispers vague and sweet,
Falls in white folds to her feet.
Light as moss veils drape their roses,
Round her flower-like form it closes—
Every graceful curve it shows us.

Silken mittens soft and quaint,
Of a shade æsthetic, faint,
Weave a jealous network o’er
Two pink palms that I adore;
And a musical mixed jangle
Comes from bracelet and from bangle
As it fetters each slim wrist
(Made but to be clasped and kissed),
With fantastic coil and twist.

Hair a-ripple like ripe corn
Wind-kissed on a summer morn.
What, you say you see the glint
Of a reaper’s blue scythe in’t?
Nay, ’tis but a silver arrow
Wand’ring through a golden furrow,
Where the sun-shafts bore and burrow.

Like a bright plumed bird is she,
From the home-nest just set free;
Knowing neither grief nor wrong,
In her heart and lips a song.
’Tis not I would wish to make her
Prim and drab-gown’d like a Quaker!
All fair things are beauty’s dower—
Doth not God’s hand paint the flower?
(Youth is but a fleeting hour!)

ANTICIPATED

Oh I have wealth, and could have placed
Upon your head a golden crown,
But Nature, having had my taste,
And being first, has set one down.

I could have given you rubies rare,
And sapphires of a heavenly hue,
And pearls all shimmering soft and fair;
But here she’s been before me too.

For ruby lips to you she’s given,
And strung two pearly rows between,
And sapphire eyes more blue than heaven
She’s dowered you with, my queen, my queen!

I needs must be content to lay
My heart’s best treasures at your feet:
Without love’s gem, which shines for aye,
The fairest crown were incomplete.

WHEN THOU ART NEAR

A SONG

When thou art near no other face I see,
Thy voice is all the music I can hear;
My heart’s desire is granted unto me
When thou art near.

When thou art near I am content, nay more,
I’m blest in breathing the same atmosphere.
To higher heights my aspirations soar
When thou art near.

When thou art near, though yet I dare not lay
My lips on those I hold so very dear,
I know that heaven is not so far away
When thou art near.

A PORTRAIT

A sadness lingers round her lips,
A shadow ever haunts her eyes;
Like dusky pools are they on which
The mystery of the moonlight lies.

Her voice is sweet, but grave in tone,
No ring hath it of joyous mirth;
Yet somehow when she speaks, methinks
A benediction falls on earth.

A sense of rest her presence brings,
She moves with such a quiet grace;
And ’tis the pitying soul within
Makes tender twilight of her face.

Methinks the Virgin-mother must
Have looked like this when to her breast
The Babe, who was to save a world,
With mingled joy and pain she pressed.

DOROTHY

Dorothy is debonair;
Little count hath she or care;
All her gold is in her hair.

And the freshness of the Spring
Round this old world seems to cling
When you hear her laugh or sing.

On her sunny way she goes;
Much she wonders—little knows,
Love’s as yet a folded rose.

All her smiles in dimples die;
Glad is she, nor knows she why:
Just to live is ecstasy!

Lightly lie the chains, methinks,
That have daisies for their links;
Youth’s the fount where Pleasure drinks.

Dorothy is debonair;
Little count hath she or care,
Sunshine in her heart and hair.

DAFFODILS

Oh, wild is the daffodils’ dance
To the tune that the March pipes blow,
Heads a-tossing—lances crossing,
Curtsies sweeping and low.

Like waves in a flaming sunset
They tumble, and twist, and turn,
What tho’ from its slender pillar
Droppeth one golden urn?

Short-lived is their joy and reckless,
Never a pause for breath.
Ah, well!—are we too not whirling
As blind, in our “dance of death”?

THE BLACKBIRD

When baby buds begin to shoot
Then hey! the blackbird’s golden flute;
All steeped in love seems every note
Let loose from his mellifluous throat.

No wild rhapsodic bursts proclaim
What rapture thrills his tiny frame,
His heart is like a brimming cup,
Where pearls of joy keep bubbling up.

The lark like some delirious thing
At heaven’s far gate may soar and sing,
But oh, methinks the blackbird brings
Heaven down to earth what time he sings!

“WHOM THE GODS LOVE DIE YOUNG”

Her voice is hushed, her hands are still,
I, from the summit of the hill,
Look down, and marvel at God’s will.

Her foot was planted at the base
All eager for the upward race,
Her genius shining in her face.

She felt the soul within her leap,
She yearned to scale the steepest steep,
And now—she’s fallen upon sleep!

God knoweth best!—I must descend
The downward slope. Good-bye, sweet friend,
Life’s myriad ways meet in the end.

GRANNIE’S BAIRN

When oor wee Elspeth’s in the hoose
I scarce hae use for hauns or feet—
An’ after a’, why should I fash
When she’s sae nimble an’ sae fleet?

“I wonner whaur I laid my specs!”
The words hae haurdly left ma mooth
Afore I fin’, across my nose,
She has them set astride forsooth.

She threeds ma needle, winds ma woo’,
Picks up the steeks that whiles will drap—
She slips aboot like some wee moose
For fear she’ll wauke me frae ma nap.

Her wee three-leggit stool ye’ll aye
Fin’ drawn up close tae granny’s chair;
She learns her task an’ sews her seam,
An’ sups her cog o’ parritch there.

An’ mony’s the lang crack we twa hae;
But whiles, sic puzzlin’ things she’ll spier,
The verra Meenister himsel’
Waud be dumbfounded could he hear.

She has her bit camsterie turns,
But just eneuch tae show that she
Is no a being that is made
O’ diff’rent clay tae you an’ me.

But that she’s no by-ord’nar wean
The neebors roon aboot agree,
And sae ye ken it is na just
Ma ain opeenion that I gie.

LOVE’S POWER

When you did leave me, love,
The whole world seem’d with you to ebb away,
And like a broken stranded wreck I lay.

But you returned; and lo!
A fresh tide thrill’d my life’s deserted shore;
And Love was conqueror over Death once more.

A JUNE MEMORY

’Twas June, the roses were reigning
In regalest splendour and pride.
Sweet peas, like butterflies tethered,
Were flutt’ring on every side.

Like smouldering fires the wallflowers
Burned dull in the sun’s strong glow,
And the yellow bees, like meteors,
Went flashing to and fro.

No lordly pleasaunce was it,
But an old-world garden wild,
Where purple-hooded pansies
And long-lashed daisies smiled.

And there in June we parted;
And the sad years hurtle by
Like birds whose wings are broken
When they just have learned to fly.

And I think,—Do you remember
In the life that’s yours to-day,
That garden and its glamour,
And the time that would not stay!

Oh, amid the faces around you,
Does one face never arise
And for a moment hold you
With the old spell of its eyes?

Ah no! You men forget us,
And we!—we must be dumb.
And life’s June goes for ever
And the snows of winter come.

A MESSAGE

In a little broken flower-pot
High up on a window-sill,
’Mid grime and gloom and squalor,
Grew a golden daffodil.

It seem’d in the gloom of the alley
Like a sunbeam that had strayed
Out from the light of heaven
Into a land of shade.

And close in a cage beside it
A skylark sweetly sang
Till all the narrow alley
With its wild rapture rang.

And one poor weary sinner
Paused, as her wild eyes turned
To where, on its humble altar,
The flower-flame upward burned.

And something stirred in her bosom;
’Twas the heart that had long lain dead,
As the bird’s song rose from its prison
In the shadow overhead.

God’s angels are birds and flowers,
And oh! methinks they preach
At times with a power and pathos
We men can never reach.

HER WINDOW

Up the gable the roses creep,
Eager to get a little peep
Behind the curtain of snowy lace
That hangs, like a bridal veil, over the face
Of a shy wee window, whose panes glint through
A network of creepers, like eyes of blue.

I needs must stand below, below,
And see them high and higher go
Till their lips are kissing the lattice sill,
And their tendrils toy at their own sweet will
With the casement, so full of tender charms
Since her shadow has lain within its arms.

SHATTERED HOPES

This morn upon the birken tree
The mavis carolled blithe and free;
But—ah, his song was not for me!

Each wild note of his glad refrain
Pierced like an arrow thro’ my brain;
I could have cursed him for his strain.

I saw the sunshine and the flowers,
Each proof of a Creator’s powers;
Yet dull and hateful were the hours.

I cannot weep—the fever dries
The tears within my burning eyes—
The past before my vision flies.

Once more I feel his deep-drawn kiss;
Once more my being thrills with bliss;
Once more I melt with tenderness.

I hear the trembling words that hung
Deep fraught with passion on his tongue,
Till heart and soul with pain are wrung.

All nature smiles—and yet to-day
In memory’s grave I’ve laid away
My idol that has turned to clay.

HAND IN HAND

Hand in hand through the flow’ry ways
Went Dora and I in the bygone days;
A wee girl she, her boy lover I,
Ready to fight for her and die.

Hand in hand through this vale of tears
Went Dora and I in the after-years;
She was my wife and her husband I
Ready to fight for her and die.

Hand in hand to the very last
As her dear eyes dimmed, and her spirit passed;
An angel is she,—alone am I
Ready, O, God! and I cannot die.

“AND FOR THE WEARY, REST”

Of all God’s precious promises
The sweetest and the best
Is, that to weary laden ones
Who come, He giveth rest.

’Tis not of glad Hosannas
And streets of shining gold
We think so much when we are sick
And sorrowful and old.

Ah! there are times we feel too sad
To contemplate the joy,
The great and glorious themes of heaven
That angel-minds employ.

And weak, and worn, and weary,
We long to lay us down,
Feeling we scarce could bear the weight
Of e’en a glory-crown.

That He is “very man,” I need
None other proof than this,—
That He has “rest” for those who feel
Almost too tired for bliss.

IN AN OLD ORCHARD

Sweet avalanches of scented snow
Bury one deep, as I lie below
The laden white boughs abloom and ablow
In the dear old orchard, where long ago
My grand-dame dreamed, as I’m dreaming now,
With love in her heart and youth on her brow.

O, blossom-time passes too soon, too soon!
And grey night follows the golden noon,
And Autumn though ruddy brings ruin and rune,
And passion ne’er warms the cold heart of the moon.
So let me dream on, ’mid the apple-blooms sweet,
For noontide and bloomtide are fair as they’re fleet.

And then when the blue of the sky is o’ercast,
And Summer is ended, and harvest is past,
And the loosened leaves earthward are fluttering fast,
And the sleep that is dreamless is mine at last,
O, make my grave here; and lay me to rest
Where the sweet-scented snow shall fall light on my breast.

BY THE SEA

I think, as the white sails come and go,
Of the welcomes loud, and the farewells low;
Of the meeting lips, and the parting tears,
Of the new-born hopes, and the growing fears,
Of the eyes that glow, and the cheeks that pale,
As the hazy horizon’s mystic veil
Is silently parted, and to and fro
The white sails come and the white sails go.

And a grey mist gathers, and all grows dim
As I watch alone by the ocean’s rim.
For a dream is mine—ah me! ah me!
That salt with tears is the salt salt sea.
O, yearning eyes and outstretched hands!
O, divided lives, and divided lands!
As long as the waters ebb and flow
Shall the white sails come and the white sails go.

REGRET

“It might have been,” is the sad refrain
That forever haunts my weary brain,
Till heart and soul grow weak with pain.

“It might have been,” are the words I hear
In the curlew’s cry from the lonely mere;
In the whisper of leaves when woods are sere.

“It might have been,” says the sea’s long moan,
As if a breaking heart of its own
Wailed out in that strange low undertone.

“It might have been.” Ah, the hungry cry
As the leaden years crawl slowly by!
It will ring through my life till I die, I die.