Ionica Part 13

A GARDEN GIRL

Oh, scanty white garment! they ask why I wear you, Such thin chilly vesture for one that is frail, And dull words of prose cannot truly declare you To be what I bid you be, love's coat of mail.

You were but a symbol of cleanness and rest, To don in the summer time, three years ago; And now you encompa.s.s a care-stricken breast With fabric of fancy to keep it aglow.

For when it was Lammastide two before this, When freshening my face after freshening my lilies, A door opened quickly, and down fell a kiss, The lips unforeseen were my pa.s.sionate Willie's.

My Willie was travel-worn, Willie was cold, And I might not keep but a dear lock of hair.

I clad him in silk and I decked him with gold, But welcome and fondness were choked in despair.

I follow the wheels, and he turns with a sob, We fold our mute hands on the death of the hour; For heart-breaking virtues and destinies rob The soul of her nursling, the thorn of her flower.

The lad's mind is rooted, his pa.s.sion red-fruited, The head I caressed is another's delight; And I, though I stray through the year sorrow-suited, At Lammas, for Willie's sake, robe me in white.

TO TWO YOUNG LADIES

There are, I've read, two troops of years, One troop is called the teens; They bring sweet gifts to little dears, Ediths and Geraldines.

The others have no certain name, Though children of the sun, They come to wrinkled men, and claim Their treasures one by one.

There is a hermit faint and dry, In things called rhymes he dabbles, And seventeen months have heard him sigh For Cissy and for Babbles.

Once, when he seemed to be bedridden, These girls said, "Make us lines,"

He tried to court, as he was bidden, His vanished Valentines.

Now, three days late, yet ere they ask, He's meekly undertaken To do his sentimental task, Philandering, though forsaken.

I pace my paradise, and long To show it off to Peris; They come not, but it can't be wrong To raise their ghosts by queries.

Is Geraldine in flowing robes?

Has Edith rippling curls?

And do their ears prolong the lobes Weighed down with gold and pearls?

And do they know the verbs of France?

And do they play duetts?

And do they blush when led to dance?

And are they called coquettes?

Oh, Cissy, if the heartless year Sets our brief loves asunder!

Oh, Babbles, whom I daren't call dear!

What can I do but wonder?

I wonder what you're both become, Whether you're children still; I pause with fingers twain and thumb Closed on my faltering quill;

I pause to think how I decay, And you win grace from Time.

Perhaps ill-natured folks would say He's pausing for a rhyme.

The sun, who drew us far apart, Might lessen my regrets, Would he but deign to use his art In painting your vignettes.

Then though I groaned for losing half Of joys that memory traces, I could forego the talk, the laugh, In welcoming the faces.

A HOUSE AND A GIRL

The strawberry tree and the crimson thorn, And f.a.n.n.y's myrtle and William's vine, And honey of bountiful jessamine, Are gone from the homestead where I was born.

I gaze from my Grandfather's terrace wall, And then I bethink me how once I stept Through rooms where my Mother had blest me, and wept To yield them to strangers, and part with them all.

My Father, like Matthew the publican, ceased Full early from h.o.a.rding with stainless mind, To Torrington only and home inclined, Where brotherhood, cousinhood, graced his feast.

I meet his remembrance in market lane, 'Neath town-hall pillars and churchyard limes, In streets where he tried a thousand times To chasten anger and soften pain.

Ah I would there were some one that I could aid, Though lacking the simpleness, lacking the worth, Yet wanted and trusted by right of birth, Some townfellow stripling, some Torrington maid.

Oh pitiful waste! oh stubborn neglect!

Oh pieties smothered for thirty years!

Oh gleanings of kindness in dreams and tears!

Oh drift cast up from a manhood wrecked!

There's one merry maiden hath carelessly crossed The threshold I dread, and she never discerns In keepsakes she thanks me for, lessons she learns, A sign of the grace that I squandered and lost.

My birthplace to Meg is but window and stone, My knowledge a wilderness where she can stray, To keep what she gathers or throw it away; So Meg lets me laugh with her, mourning alone.

A FELLOW Pa.s.sENGER UNKNOWN

Maiden, hastening to be wise, Maiden, reading with a rage, Envy fluttereth round the page Whereupon thy downward eyes Rove and rest, and melt maybe-- Virgin eyes one may not see, Gathering as the bee Takes from cherry tree; As the robin's bill Frets the window sill, Maiden, bird, and bee, Three from me half hid, Doing what we did When our minds were free.

Those romantic pages wist What romance is in the look.

Oh, that I could be so bold, So romantic as to bold Half an hour the pensive wrist, And the burden of the book.

NUREMBERG CEMETERY

Outside quaint Albert Durer's town, Where Freedom set her stony crown, Whereof the gables red and brown Curve over peaceful forts that screen Spring bloom and garden lanes between The scarp and counter-scarp. Her feet One highday of Saint Paraclete Were led along the dolorous street By stepping stones towards love and heaven And pauses of the soul twice seven.