Perhaps, in small, blue diving-bells, They plunge beneath the waves, Inhabiting the wreathed shells
That lie in coral caves; Perhaps, in red Vesuvius, Carousals they maintain; And cheer their little spirits thus,
Till green leaves come again.
When they return there will be mirth,
And music in the air,
And fairy wings upon the earth,
And mischief everywhere.
The maids, to keep the elves aloof,
Will bar the doors in vain ;
No key-hole will be fairy-proof,
When green leaves come again.
THE baron hath the landward park, the fisher hath the sea;
But the rocky haunts of the sea-fowl belong alone to me.
The baron hath the landward park, the fisher hath the sea;
But the rocky haunts of the sea-fowl be long alone to me.
WHEN on the breath of autumn breeze,
From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating like an idle thought
The fair white thistle-down,
Oh then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest hill!
What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,
And see all round on sun-lit slopes
The pil'd-up stacks of corn;
And send the fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.
I feel the day- I see the field,
The quivering of the leaves,
And good old Jacob and his house
Binding the yellow sheaves;
And at this very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.
I see the fields of Bethlehem
And reapers many a one,
Bending unto their sickles' stroke,
And Boaz looking on;
And Ruth, the Moabite so fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.
Again I see a little child,
His mother's sole delight,
God's living gift of love unto
The kind good Shunammite;
To mortal pangs I see him yield,
And the lad bear him from the field.
The sun-bath'd quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,
That eighteen hundred years ago
Were full of corn, I see ;
And the dear Saviour takes his way 'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath day.
Oh, golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!
The reaper-folk, the pil'd-up sheaves,
To me are like a dream.
The sunshine and the very air
Seem of old time, and take me there.
And love that, like the nightingale,
Sings only in the spring.
Thou art my spirit's all,
Just as thou wert in youth,
Still from thy grave no shadows fall
Upon my lonely truth;
A taper yet above thy tomb,
Since lost its sweeter rays,
And what is memory, through the gloom, Was hope, in brighter days.
I am pining for the home
Where sorrow sinks to sleep,
Where the weary and the weepers come,
And they cease to toil and weep.
Why walk about with smiles
That each should be a tear,
Vain as the summer's glowing spoils
Flung o'er an early bier ?
TRIPPING down the field-path,
Early in the morn, There I met my own love
'Midst the golden corn; Autumn winds were blowing,
As in frolic chase, All her silken ringlets
Backward from her face;
Little time for speaking
Had she, for the wind,
Bonnet, scarf, or ribbon,
Ever swept behind.
Still some sweet improvement
In her beauty shone ;
Every graceful movement
Won me, one by one!
As the breath of Venus
Seemed the breeze of morn,
Blowing thus between us,
'Midst the golden corn.
Little time for wooing
Had we, for the wind
Still kept on undoing
What we sought to bind.
Oh! that autumn morning
In my heart it beams,
Love's last look adorning
With its dream of dreams :
Still, like waters flowing
In the ocean shell,
Sounds of breezes blowing
In my spirit dwell;
Still I see the field-path;
Would that I could see
Her whose graceful beauty
Lost is now to me!
TAKE THE WORLD AS IT IS
TAKE the world as it is! there are good and bad in it,
And good and bad will be from now to the end;
And they, who expect to make saints in a minute,
Are in danger of marring more hearts than they'll mend.
'Tis but a little odor shed, A light gone out, a spirit fled, A funeral hour.
Then let us show a tranquil brow
Whate'er befalls;
That we upon life's latest brink
May look on Death's dark face, - and think
THE ROSE THOU GAV'ST
THE rose thou gav'st at parting-
Hast thou forgot the hour?
The moon was on the river,
The dew upon the flower :
Thy voice was full of tenderness,
But, ah! thy voice misleads;
The rose is like thy promises,
Its thorn is like thy deeds.
The winter cometh bleakly,
And dark the time must be ;
Bnt I can deem it summer
To what thou 'st prov'd to me.
The snow that meets the sunlight
Soon hastens from the scene;
But melting snow is lasting,
To what thy faith hath been.
'T WAS JUST BEFORE THE HAY WAS MOWN
'T WAS just before the hay was mown, The season had been wet and cold, When my good dame began to groan,
And speak of days and years of old : Ye were a young man then, and gay,
And raven black your handsome hair; Ah! Time steals many a grace away,
And leaves us many a grief to bear.
Tush! tush! said I, we 've had our time,
And if 't were here again 't would go ;
The youngest cannot keep their prime,
The darkest head some gray must show.
We've been together forty years,
And though it seem but like a day, We've much less cause, dear dame, for tears,
Than many who have trod life's way.
Goodman, said she, ye 're always right,
And 't is a pride to hear your tongue; And though your fine old head be white, "Tis dear to me as when 't were young. So give your hand, — 't was never shown But in affection unto me;
And I shall be beneath the stone,
And lifeless, when I love not thee.
CHEEKS as soft as July peaches,
Lips whose dewy scarlet teaches
Poppies paleness-round large eyes
Ever great with new surprise,
Minutes fill'd with shadeless gladness,
Minutes just as brimm'd with sadness,
Happy smiles and wailing cries,
Crows and laughs and tearful eyes,
Lights and shadows swifter born
Than on wind-swept Autumn corn,
Ever some new tiny notion
Making every limb all motion-
Catching up of legs and arms,
Throwings back and small alarms,
Clutching fingers-straightening jerks,
Twining feet whose each toe works,
Kickings up and straining risings,
Mother's ever new surprisings,
Hands all wants and looks all wonder
At all things the heavens under,
Tiny scorns of smil'd reprovings
That have more of love than lovings,
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness, that we prize such sinning,
Breakings dire of plates and glasses,
Graspings small at all that passes,
Pullings off of all that's able
To be caught from tray or table ;
Silences - small meditations,
Deep as thoughts of cares for nations,
Breaking into wisest speeches
In a tongue that nothing teaches,
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing
Slumbers such sweet angel-seemings,
That we'd ever have such dreamings,
Till from sleep we see thee breaking,
And we'd always have thee waking;
Wealth for which we know no measure,
Pleasure high above all pleasure,
Gladness brimming over gladness,
Joy in care delight in sadness,
Loveliness beyond completeness,
Sweetness distancing all sweetness,
Beauty all that beauty may be -
That's May Bennett, that's my baby.
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