O Swan of slenderness,
Dove of tenderness,
Jewel of joys, arise!
The little red lark,
Like a soaring spark
Of song, to his sunburst flies;
But till thou art arisen,
Earth is a prison,
Full of my lonesome sighs:
Then awake and discover,
To thy fond lover,
The morn of thy matchless eyes.
The...
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my making dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine stealing o’er the scene
Had blended with the...
Somebody ’s courting somebody,
Somewhere or other to-night;
Somebody ’s whispering to somebody,
Somebody ’s listening to somebody,
Under this clear moonlight.
Near the bright river’s flow,
Running so still and slow,
Talking so soft and low,
She sits with Somebody.
Pacing the ocean’s shore,
Edged by the...
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,—
I in my arms the maiden clasping;
I could not tell the reason why,
But, O, I trembled like an aspen!
Her father’s love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man,—in vain!
We had exchanged our hearts indeed.
I. Her RESPECTABLE PAPA’S
“MY dear, be sensible! Upon my word
This—for a woman even—is absurd;
His income ’s not a hundred pounds, I know.
He ’s not worth loving.”—“But I love him so!”
II. Her MOTHER’S
“You silly child, he is well made and tall;
But looks are far from being all in all.
His social standing ’s low, his family ’s low...
To Julia
HER eyes the glow-worme lend thee,
The shooting-starres attend thee,
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No Will-o’-th’-wispe mislight thee,
Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee;
But on thy way,
Not making stay,
Since ghost there ’s none...
From “The Angel in the House”
I GREW assured, before I asked,
That she ’d be mine without reserve,
And in her unclaimed graces basked
At leisure, till the time should serve,—
With just enough of dread to thrill
The hope, and make it trebly dear:
Thus loath to speak the word, to kill
Either the hope or happy fear.
...
Across the pathway, myrtle-fringed,
Under the maple, it was hinged—
The little wooden gate;
’T was there within the quiet gloam,
When I had strolled with Nelly home,
I used to pause and wait
Before I said to her good-night,
Yet loath to leave the winsome sprite
Within the garden’s pale;
And there, the gate...
I Sat with Doris, the shepherd-maiden;
Her crook was laden with wreathèd flowers:
I sat and wooed her, through sunlight wheeling
And shadows stealing, for hours and hours.
And she, my Doris, whose lap encloses
Wild summer-roses of sweet perfume,
The while I sued her, kept hushed and hearkened,
Till shades had darkened from gloss...
One evening walking out, I o’ertook a modest colleen,
When the wind was blowing cool, and the harvest leaves were falling:
“Is our way by chance the same? might we travel on together?”
“Oh, I keep the mountain side,” she replied, “among the heather.”
“Your mountain air is sweet when the days are long and sunny,
When the grass grows round the rocks, and...
