Down the dimpled greensward dancing,
Bursts a flaxen-headed bevy,—
Bud-lipt boys and girls advancing,
Love’s irregular little levy.
Rows of liquid eyes in laughter,
How they glimmer, how they quiver!
Sparkling one another after,
Like bright ripples on a river.
Tipsy band of rubious faces,
Flushed with Joy’s...
From The Atlantic Magazine
WHEN to the garden of untroubled thought
I came of late, and saw the open door,
And wished again to enter, and explore
The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought,
And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught,
It seemed some purer voice must speak before
I dared to tread that garden loved...
“One name is Elizabeth.”
—BEN JONSON.
I WILL paint her as I see her.
Ten times have the lilies blown
Since she looked upon the sun.
And her face is lily-clear,
Lily-shaped, and dropped in duty
To the law of its own beauty.
Oval cheeks encolored faintly,
Which a trail of golden hair
Keeps from...
SLEEP breathes at last from out thee,
My little patient boy;
And balmy rest about thee
Smooths off the day’s annoy.
I sit me down, and think
Of all thy winning ways;
Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,
That I had less to praise.
Thy sidelong pillowed meekness;
Thy thanks to all that aid;...
I.
have you not heard the poets tell
How came the dainty Baby Bell
Into this world of ours?
The gates of heaven were left ajar:
With folded hands and dreamy eyes,
Wandering out of Paradise,
She saw this planet, like a star,
Hung in the glistening depths of even—
Its bridges, running to and fro,
O’er which the white-...
All in our marriage garden
Grew, smiling up to God,
A bonnier flower than ever
Suckt the green warmth of the sod;
O, beautiful unfathomably
Its little life unfurled;
And crown of all things was our wee
White Rose of all the world.
From out a balmy bosom
Our bud of beauty grew;
It fed on smiles for...
O, Those little, those little blue shoes!
Those shoes that no little feet use.
O the price were high
That those shoes would buy,
Those little blue unused shoes!
For they hold the small shape of feet
That no more their mother’s eyes meet,
That, by God’s good will,
Years since, grew still,
And ceased from...
A Lighter scarf of richer fold
The morning flushed upon our sight,
And Evening trimmed her lamps of gold,
From deeper springs of purer light;
And softer drips bedewed the lea,
And whiter blossoms veiled the tree,
And bluer waves danced on the sea
When baby Zulma came to be!
The day before, a bird had sung
Strange...
From the Dutch by H. S. Van Dyk
A HOST of angels flying,
Through cloudless skies impelled,
Upon the earth beheld
A pearl of beauty lying,
Worthy to glitter bright
In heaven’s vast hall of light.
They saw, with glances tender,
An infant newly born,
O’er whom life’s earliest morn
Just cast its opening...
As a twig trembles, which a bird
Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;—
I only know she came and went.
As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
The blue dome’s measureless content,
So my soul held that moment’s heaven;—
I only know she came and went.
As, at one bound, our swift...
