Works

'La maison sans enfants!' - VICTOR HUGO.


I.

A month without sight of the sun
Rising or reigning or setting
Through days without use of the day,
Who calls it the month of May?...

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;...

She has the eyes of some barbarian Queen
Leading her wild tribes into battle; eyes,
Wherein th' unconquerable soul defies,
And Love sits throned, imperious and serene.
...

While the earth is dark and grey
How I laugh within: I know
In my breast what ardours gay
From the morning overflow.

Though the cheek be white and wet
In my heart no fear may fall:...

Talk not of sad November, when a day
Of warm, glad sunshine fills the sky of noon,
And a wind, borrowed from some morn of June,
Stirs the brown grasses and the leafless spray.
...

I. MORNING

The village fades away
Where I last night came,
Where they housed me and fed me
And never asked my name.

The sun shines bright, my step is light,
I, who have no abode,...

I'll tell you how the sun rose, --
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun....

On a sunny brae alone I lay
One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May,
With her young lover, June.

From her mother's heart seemed loath to part
That queen of bridal charms,...

Chequer'd with woven shadows as I lay
Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam,
I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay
Most idly floating in the noontide beam.
Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and fell, with sway...

O gift of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,...

I rose, and idly sauntered to the pane,
And on the March-bleak mountain bent my look;
And standing there a sad review I took
Of what the day had brought me. What the gain...

If you in the village think that my work was a good one,
Who closed the saloons and stopped all playing at cards,
And haled old Daisy Fraser before Justice Arnett,
In many a crusade to purge the people of sin;...

Lady, very fair are you,
And your eyes are very blue,
And your hose;
And your brow is like the snow,
And the various things you know,
Goodness knows.

And the rose-flush on your cheek,...

(A Prefatory Sonnet for SANTA LUCIA, the Misses Hodgkin's Magazine for the Blind)

We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well
Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play...

So the gray Boatswain of 'Twenty-nine
Piped to "The Boys" as they crossed the line;
Round the cabin sat thirty guests,
Babes of the nurse with a thousand breasts.
...

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
Love me: we will pass and part,
Ere this love grow stronger.

I have loved thee, Child! too well,
To do aught but leave thee:...

And dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous Heaven design'd,
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined'


Dwells there a wish in such a breast
Its nature to forego,...

(Spoken by Mrs. Hilson.)




The music's done. Be quiet, Mr. Durie!
Your bell and whistle put me in a fury!
Don't ring up yet, sir--I've a word to say...

(Spoken by Mrs. Chapman.)




Nay, Mr. Simpson!--'Tis not kind--polite--
To shut me out, sir?--I'm in such a fright!--
I can not speak the lines, I'm sure!--Oh, fie!...

(Spoken by Mrs. Sharpe)




What gay assemblage greets my wondering sight!
What scene of splendor--conjured here to-night!
What voices murmur, and what glances gleam!...