At night-time languish,
Oft raising in his broken sleep
The moan of anguish.
The lover, if for certain days.
His fair one be denied his gaze,
Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,
But, wiser wooer,
He spends the time in writing lays,
And posts them to her.
And if the verse flow free and fast,
Till even the poet is aghast,
A touching Valentine at last
The post shall carry,
When thirteen days are gone and past
Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,
In desert waste or crowded street,
Perhaps before this week shall fleet,
Perhaps to-morrow,
I trust to find your heart the seat
Of wasting sorrow.
WEETHEART, name the day for me When we two shall wedded be. Make it ere another moon, While the meadows are in tune, And the trees are blossoming, And the robins mate and sing. Whisper, love, and name a day In this merry month of May.
You shall not escape me so!
Love will not forever wait;
Roses fade when gathered late.
. Fie, for shame, Sir Malcontent!
How can time be better spent
Than in wooing? I would wed
When the clover blossoms red,
When the air is full of bliss,
And the sunshine like a kiss.
If you're good I'll grant a boon:
You shall have me, sir, in June.
Girls for once should have their way!
If you love me, wait till June:
Rosebuds wither, picked too soon.
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
WELL, Helen, quite two years have flown
WELL Since that enchanted, dreamy night,
When you and I were left alone,
And wondered whether they were right
Who said that each the other loved;
And thus debating, yes and no,
And half in earnest, as it proved,
We bargained to pretend 'twas so.
Two sceptic children of the world,
Each with a heart engraven o'er
With broken love-knots, quaintly curled,
Of hot flirtations held before;
Yet, somehow, either seemed to find,
This time, a something more akin
To that young, natural love, the kind
Which comes but once, and breaks us in.
What sweetly stolen hours we knew,
And frolics perilous as gay!
Though lit in sport, Love's taper grew
More bright and burning day by day.
We knew each heart was only lent,
The other's ancient scars to heal:
The very thought a pathos blent
With all the mirth we tried to feel.
How bravely when the time to part
Came with the wanton season's close,
Though nature with our mutual art
Had mingled more than either chose,
We smothered Love, upon the verge
Of folly, in one last embrace,
And buried him without a dirge,
And turned, and left his resting-place.
Yet often (tell me what it means!)
His spirit steals upon me here,
Far, far away from all the scenes
His little lifetime held so dear;
He comes: I hear a mystic strain
In which some tender memory lies;
I dally with your hair again;
I catch the gleam of violet eyes.
Ah, Helen! how have matters been
Since those rude obsequies, with you?
Say, is my partner in the sin
A sharer of the penance too?
Again the vision's at my side:
I drop my head upon my breast,
And wonder if he really died,
And why his spirit will not rest.
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
UR great-great-grandpapas had schooled Your fancies, Lita, were you born In days when Cotton Mather ruled And damask petticoats were worn! Your pretty ways, your mocking air, Had passed, mayhap, for Satan's wiles— As fraught with danger, then and there, To you, as now to us your smiles.
Why not? Were inquest to begin,
The tokens are not far to seek:
Item-the dimple of your chin;
Item-that freckle on your cheek.
Grace shield his simple soul from harm
Who enters yon flirtation niche,
Or trusts in whispered counter-charm,
Alone with such a parlous witch!
Your fan a wand is, in disguise;
It conjures, and we straight are drawn
Within a witches' Paradise
Of music, germans, roses, lawn.
So through the season, where you go,
All else than Lita men forget:
One needs no second-sight to know
That sorcery is rampant yet.
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