Six skeins and three, six skeins and three!
Good mother, so you stinted me,
And here they be,—ay, six and three!
Stop, busy wheel! stop, noisy wheel!
Long shadows down my chamber steal,
An’ warn me to make haste and reel.
’T is done,—the spinning work complete,
O heart of mine, what makes you beat
So fast and sweet, so fast...
Once, on a golden afternoon,
With radiant faces and hearts in tune,
Two fond lovers in dreaming mood
Threaded a rural solitude.
Wholly happy, they only knew
That the earth was bright and the sky was blue,
That light and beauty and joy and song
Charmed the way as they passed along:
The air was fragrant with woodland...
Under yonder beech-tree standing on the green sward,
Couched with her arms behind her little head,
Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her!
Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow,
Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me—...
“love your neighbor as yourself,”—
So the parson preaches:
That ’s one half the Decalogue,—
So the prayer-book teaches.
Half my duty I can do
With but little labor,
For with all my heart and soul
I do love my neighbor.
Mighty little credit, that,
To my self-denial;
Not to love her, though, might be...
Tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied her raven ringlets in.
But not alone in the silken snare
Did she catch her lovely floating hair,
For, tying her bonnet under her chin,
She tied a young man’s heart within.
They were strolling together up the hill,
Where the wind came blowing merry and chill;
And it blew the curls a...
My little love, do you remember,
Ere we were grown so sadly wise,
Those evenings in the bleak December,
Curtained warm from the snowy weather,
When you and I played chess together,
Checkmated by each other’s eyes?
Ah! still I see your soft white hand
Hovering warm o’er Queen and Knight;
Brave Pawns in valiant battle...
I ’m sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance,
In a robe even you would admire,—
It cost a cool thousand in France;
I ’m bediamonded out of all reason,
My hair is done up in a cue:
In short, sir, “the belle of the season”
Is wasting an hour on you.
A dozen engagements I ’ve broken;
I left in the...
Upon ane stormy Sunday,
Coming adoon the lane,
Were a score of bonnie lassies—
And the sweetest I maintain
Was Caddie,
That I took unneath my plaidie,
To shield her from the rain.
She said that the daisies blushed
For the kiss that I had ta’en;
I wadna hae thought the lassie
Wad sae of a kiss...
As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping
With a pitcher of milk, from the fair of Coleraine,
When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled,
And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain.
“O, what shall I do now—’t was looking at you now!
Sure, sure, such a pitcher I ’ll ne’er meet again!
’T was the pride of my dairy: O Barney M...
“ah! sweet Kitty Neil, rise up from that wheel,—
Your neat little foot will be weary with spinning!
Come trip down with me to the sycamore-tree:
Half the parish is there, and the dance is beginning.
The sun is gone down, but the full harvest moon
Shines sweetly and cool on the dew-whitened valley;
While all the air rings with the soft,...
