I ken the lassie’s winsome,
An’ blithe as she is braw;
But ’tis not worth nor beauty aye
That steal the heart awa’.

Her cheek is like the wild-rose,
Her lips are like the haw;
But neither ane nor t’ither ’twas
That stole my heart awa’.

O, mighty organ of a thousand keys,
O’er which the Master’s fingers ever stray!
I, listening, hear a myriad melodies
Played in the space of one short summer day.

The long, low plash of little languid waves,
The sweet, sad dirge of softly dying swell,
The deep, delicious gurglings in the caves,
Hold music that this soul of mine loves well.

Her mouth looks like a scarlet flower
And I feel like a hungry bee,
I long to dart straight to its heart,
But—what would be the fate of me?

The bravest ’tis should win the prize,
And yet I dare not risk her scorn,
And who but knows the reddest rose
May hide the very sharpest thorn?

Yet who can tell but she might yield
Its sweetness up in one long kiss?
So I, who dare not risk her scorn,
Can risk still less to lose such bliss.

A fleet of fairy vessels
All freighted with pure gold,
The lilies lie at anchor
On the lake’s breast, calm and cold.

Their soft, white sails, seem waiting
The zephyr’s first faint kiss
To waft them to another world,
More bright and fair than this.

“Tick! tick! tick!” goes the old clock in the hall;
The merry hours, the mournful hours
Alike he counts them all
As he stands erect at his post,
Time’s solemn Sentinel.

All that he hath to say he saith,
And on, with never a pause for breath,
He hurries us nearer the day of death.
Though his warning voice is ofttimes drowned
In the whirr, as the wheels of life run round,
Yet, whether or no we hear the sound,—

Upon a bosom snowy white
A little dimpled chin drops down,
While trembling shy lids hide the light
Of love, new born in eyes dark brown.

A tiny timorous hand seeks mine
For shelter, fluttering like a dove;
And with a rapture half divine
I burn my kisses through its glove.

June’s rosy treasures sweetly blend
Upon her cheek and modest brow,
But only Cupid’s self could lend
The crimson stealing o’er them now.

Red as blood is Autumn’s gown,
And a flaming fire her crown.

And her fingers sere and scorch,
Each one a destroying torch.

Fever follows in her wake,
Nor the dews her thirst can slake.

In her kisses there is death,
And decay in every breath.

She makes tombs of what were bowers,
Strewn with corses of dead flowers.

Just a pair of green-grey eyes,
With a knack of changing
Like the sea, when shine and shower
O’er its breast are ranging.

Just a pair of green-grey eyes
Each one a heart-breaker,
Who would think that they belonged
To a little Quaker?

You and I among the roses—
You and I and love and June—
All without and all within us
Set to one sweet happy tune!

You and I among the roses!
Drowsy bees go blundering by;
’Mid the tresses on your temples
Little breezes swoon and die.

You and I among the roses!
Overhead a sapphire dome;
’Neath our feet a sea of emerald,
Flecked with daisies for its foam.

I am dreaming of you, belovèd,
In my home among the hills;
Your eyes meet mine in every flower;
Above the highest height you tower,
Yet the glamour of your presence
The lowest valley fills.

I hear your voice in the river
That sings on its way to the sea;
And when the wind sweeps over
The low beds of the clover,
’Tis the breath of my belovèd
Its wide wings bear to me.

Sing, oh sing, ’tis summer time!
Sing it ’mong the roses,—
Sing it till each sleeping bud,
Dewy-eyed, uncloses.

Sing it through the woodlands, till
All the song-birds hear it!
Sing,—till every blade of grass
Finds a voice to cheer it.

* * * *

Sigh, oh sigh, ’tis winter drear!
Sigh it through the flowing
Shroud that over earth’s dead breast
Falls in time of snowing.

The sky stretched blue above us,
The sea slept at our feet,
As still, as if its mighty heart
Had almost ceased to beat.

A trembling hush seemed slowly
Across the earth to steal,
As when after benediction
The priest and people kneel.

A glad young girl amid the sunshine flitting,
Like a bright bird let loose from Paradise—
A weary woman, in the shadow, sitting
With haggard face and dry despairing eyes.

* * * * * *

Why comest thou with those grand eyes of thine
To lure me as the cruel light the moth,
To my destruction.—Long ago my wrath
Cooled its white heat in pity’s depths divine.

There was a time when full of bitter hate
I could have crushed thee—but that time is past,
And tho’ I needs must love thee to the last,
Tempt me not now—it is too late, too late.

I could not lay her down to sleep
In a death-crowded place,
With grim black yews to keep God’s sun
From shining on her face.

With softest greenest moss I lined
For her a little nest;
No crushing marble slab I laid
Upon her tender breast.

Only an old wooden dolly,
With an arm and a leg a-missing,
The point of her nose rubbed off, I suppose,
Through too much washing or kissing.

In a frock of faded satin,
With tinsel lace tarnished and tattered;
Her “coal-scuttle” bonnet holds, alas!
A head that’s a trifle battered.

Oh, no, she has not lost her locks,
She never had curls black or golden;
A doll’s wig was safely painted on
In the days that you call “olden.”

Only a string of cold white pearls,
Or diamond drops, like frozen tears,
Has clasped my lady’s slender neck
Through all the barren empty years.

This is Dolly’s garden,
All her “very own,”
Every flower that’s in it
By her hand was sown—
Never out of Eden
Were such blossoms blown.

Like her eyes those pansies,
Deep and dark and blue—
As her soul those lilies,
Pure and white and true;
Frail earth-flowers and fading—
Dolly’s fading too.

She sailed away one summer day
In a ship of shining shell:
Her cloak was a butterfly’s gauzy wing,
Her bonnet a big blue-bell,
Her bed was a lady’s slipper,
Her blankets the leaves of a rose,
And a cushion of thistledown had she,
Just to rest her tiny toes.

With golden oars from the earth’s dark shores
She was borne o’er a silver sea;
And she never feared as the captain steered
For the land where she wished to be.

A rebel rose climbed to the top of the hedge,
And watched the people go up and down
The winding highway, dusty and grey,
That stretched from the village away to the town.

And an anger surged in her passionate heart,
’Gainst the humble garden where she was born,
And her red lips curled at the old flower world,
And she cast around her such looks of scorn

In his niche in the hall, the old clock stands,
But hushed is his voice, and still are his hands.
He ceased from his labours long years ago,
And he’s only a “pensioner” now, you know.

He did his duty as long as he could,
For a brave heart beat in his breast of wood,
And you could depend on all he said
Till age, at last, turned him queer in the head.

Butterfly, O butterfly,
With gaily-jewelled wings,
You make me think of fairy folk
And of enchanted things.

You once were held a prisoner
In a castle grim and grey—
A “chrysalis” folk called it—
But you escaped away.

I wonder “when” and I wonder “where”
The Angel of Death will come,
And, laying a finger on lids and lips,
Will strike me blind and dumb.

I wonder “when” and I wonder “where”!
Like the skeleton at the feast,
’Mid laughter and mirth this thought finds birth
Where it is welcome least.

The red and russet of Autumn die,
In the lap of winter their ashes lie,
And the earth is wan and grey the sky.

But the noon of a wondrous joy is mine,
And my pulses thrill with the glowing wine
That flows from the grape of Love’s deathless vine.

What care have I that the brown stems bear
Nor leaf nor bloom, and the mad winds tear
The last poor tatters the forests wear?

Womanly-sweet in all her ways,
Slow to condemn, and swift to praise;
Ready to help in hour of need,
Generous in thought as well as deed.

Pitiful, tender, yet firm and strong
To uphold the right and put down wrong;
Never a thought of self or gain,
Proud of her God-given gifts—not vain.

Laughter-loving, and fond of fun,
When the “daily round” and task are done;
Modest and maidenly, yet no prude;
Perfect enough, but not “too good.”

We are such friends, my little girl and I,
That, though her summers number scarcely nine
I need none other, as I go my ways
With her small fingers closely clasping mine.

A little world we two make of our own,
And people it with all things fair and sweet;
The stars that twinkle overhead at night
Drop down at dawn in daisies at our feet.