DARLINGS of the forest!
Blossoming, alone,
When Earth’s grief is sorest
For her jewels gone—
Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds have blown.
Tinged with color faintly,
Like the morning sky,...
Put every tiny robe away!
The stitches all were set with tears,
Slow, tender drops of joys; to-day
Their rain would wither hopes or fears:
Bitter enough to daunt the moth
That longs to fret this dainty cloth.
The filmy lace, the ribbons blue,...
A week ago to-day, when red-haired Sally
DOWN to the sugar-camp came to see me,
I saw her checked frock coming down the valley,
Far as anybody’s eyes could see.
Now I sit before the camp-fire,
And I can’t see the pine-knots blaze,
Nor Sally’s...
If i were a cloud in heaven,
I would hang over thee;
If I were a star of even,
I ’d rise and set for thee;
For love, life, light, were given
Thy ministers to be.
If I were a wind’s low laughter,
I ’d kiss thy hair;
Or a...
Fasten the chamber!
Hide the red key;
Cover the portal,
That eyes may not see.
Get thee to market,
To wedding and prayer;
Labor or revel,
The chamber is there!
In comes a stranger—
“Thy pictures how fine,
Titian or...
I watch her in the corner there,
As, restless, bold, and unafraid,
She slips and floats along the air
Till all her subtile house is made.
Her home, her bed, her daily food,
All from that hidden store she draws;
She fashion it and knows it good,...
It sings to me in sunshine,
It whispers all day long,
My heartache like an echo
Repeats the wistful song:
Only a quaint old love-lilt,
Wherein my life is hid,—
“My body is in Segovia,
But my soul is in Madrid!”
I dream, and wake,...
