For you will see there, as the sun goes down, Such gracious light she will about her bring, And all the quickened clouds do fall astir No ornaments but her two sapphire eyes, And the twin roses in her cheeks that grow, The nice-set pearls, that make so fine a show When that she either softly smiles or sighs, And the long tresses, colored like a beeBrown, with a sunlight shimmer. You will see, When you have ceased to watch the airy spring That song Kit Marlowe made so long ago— Dear soul, you would not be at heaven's high gate By fortune's sweet selection, graced above my love! THE LOVER'S INTERDICT. But when the singer singeth down the sweets 251 You must not touch the fair and flowery sheets When all the wayward mists, because of her, She is my love this woodland shepherdess. The cap, the clasps, the kirtle fringed along Immortaled with refrains of Live with me! But, favored traveller, ere you quit my gate, Else will I pray that all yon woody weight THE SETTLER'S CHRISTMAS EVE. IN a patch of clearing, scarcely more A little, low, and lonesome shed, Aye, low, so low the wind-warped eave You might almost stretch a bishop's sleeve The roof-tree's bent and knotty knees And the door-yard fence is three felled trees ; And a grape-vine, shaggy and rough and red, Swings from the well-sweep's high, sharp head. And among the stubs, all charred and black, Away to the distant huts, Winds in and out the wagon-track, Cut full of zigzag ruts : And down and down to the sluggish pond, And through and up to the swamps beyond. And do you ask beneath such thatch What heart or hope may be? THE SETTLER'S CHRISTMAS EVE. Just pull the string of the wooden latch, A hearth-stone broad and warm and wide, And 'twixt them, in the radiant glow, With faces in a shining row, Six children, girls and boys; And in the cradle a head half-hid For the baby sleeps in the shaded light And two little stockings, scarlet bright, On the dresser, saved for weeks and weeks, And some are red as the children's cheeks, A clock that looks like a skeleton, And that never was such a clock to run 253 The Settler's rifle, bright and brown, And swinging a hand's breadth lower down Bible and Hymn-book, thumbed all through, "Baxter's Call," and a novel or two. "Peter Wilkins," "The Bloody Hand," "The Sailor's Bride and Bark," "Jerusalem and the Holy Land,” "The Travels of Lewis and Clarke; Some tracts: among them, "The Milk-maid's Fall,' "Pleasure Punished," and " Death at a Ball." A branch of sumach, shining bright, With a string of birds'-eggs, blue and white, You will say the six little heads in a row By the hearth-stone make the prettiest show. The boldest urchin dares not stir ; But each heart, be sure, rebels He has rubbed the glass and rubbed the bow, 66 Come, Molly!" he says, come Sue, come Joe, How the faces shine with glad surprise, |