She was a beauty in the days When Madison was President, And quite coquettish in her ways,— On conquests of the heart intent. Grandpapa, on his right knee bent, Wooed her in stiff, old-fashioned phrase,— She was a beauty in the days When Madison was President. And when your roses where hers went Shall go, my Rose, who date from Hayes, I hope you ’ll wear her sweet content Of whom tradition lightly says: She was a beauty in the days When Madison was President.
I take my chaperon to the play— She thinks she ’s taking me. And the gilded youth who owns the box, A proud young man is he; But how would his young heart be hurt If he could only know That not for his sweet sake I go Nor yet to see the trifling show; But to see my chaperon...
Wind of the City Streets, Impatient to be free, In this dull time of heats My love takes wings to flee: Leave thou this idle Town And hunt Her down. Wherever She may stay, By Sea or Mountain-side, Make thou thy airy Way, If there She bide; If sea-spray kiss...
She might have known it in the earlier Spring,— That all my heart with vague desire was stirred; And, ere the Summer winds had taken wing, I told her; but she smiled and said no word. The Autumn’s eager hand his red gold grasped, And she was silent; till from skies grown drear Fell soft...
This is a breath of summer wind That comes—we know not how—that goes As softly,—leaving us behind, Pleased with a smell of vine and rose. Poet, shall this be all thy word? Blow on us with a bolder breeze, Until we rise, as having heard The sob, the song of far-off seas. Blow in thy shell...
Haro! haro! Judge now betwixt this woman and me, Haro She leaves me bond, who found me free. Of love and hope she hath drained me dry— Yea, barren as a drought-struck sky; She hath not left me tears for weeping, Nor will my eyelids close in sleeping. I have gathered all my life’s-blood...
