So, I shall see her in three days
And just one night, but nights are short,
Then two long hours, and that is morn.
See how I come, unchanged, unworn!
Feel, where my life broke off from thine,
How fresh the splinters keep and fine---
Only a touch and we combine!
Too long, this time of year, the days!
But nights, at least the nights are short....
Three years she grew in sun and shower;
Then Nature said, “A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown:
This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.
“Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse; and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and...
(a Cat’s Tale, with Additions)
THREE little kittens lost their mittens;
And they began to cry,
O mother dear,
We very much fear
That we have lost our mittens.
Lost your mittens!
You naughty kittens!
Then you shall have no pie.
Mee-ow, mee-ow, mee-ow.
No, you shall...
Three children sliding on the ice
Upon a summer’s day,
As it fell out they all fell in,
The rest they ran away.
Now, had these children been at home,
Or sliding on dry ground,
Ten thousand pounds to one penny
They had not all been drowned.
You parents all that children have,
And you too that have none,...
There were three maidens who loved a king;
They sat together beside the sea;
One cried, “I love him, and I would die
If but for one day he might love me!”
The second whispered, “And I would die
To gladden his life, or make him great.”
The third one spoke not, but gazed afar
With dreamy eyes that were sad as Fate.
The...
Love
I Leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover,
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;
“Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover—
Hush, nightingale, hush! O sweet nightingale, wait
Till I listen and hear
If a step draweth near,
For my love he is late!
“The skies in the darkness...
The Irish Famine
GIVE me three grains of corn, mother,—
Only three grains of corn;
It will keep the little life I have
Till the coming of the morn.
I am dying of hunger and cold, mother,—
Dying of hunger and cold;
And half the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.
It has gnawed like a wolf, at my heart,...
The Flesh
“sweet, thou art pale.”
“More pale to see,
Christ hung upon the cruel tree
And bore his Father’s wrath for me.”
“Sweet, thou art sad.”
“Beneath a rod
More heavy Christ for my sake trod
The wine-press of the wrath of God.”
“Sweet, thou art weary.”...
So much to do: so little done!
Ah! yesternight I saw the sun
Sink beamless down the vaulted gray,—
The ghastly ghost of YESTERDAY.
So little done: so much to do!
Each morning breaks on conflicts new;
But eager, brave, I ’ll join the fray,
And fight the battle of TO-DAY.
So much to do: so little done!
But when it ’s o’...
The Tree of deepest root is found
Least willing still to quit the ground;
’T was therefore said by ancient sages,
That love of life increased with years
So much, that in our latter stages,
When pains grow sharp and sickness rages,
The greatest love of life appears.
This great affection to believe,
Which all confess, but few...
