To Helen

My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
My joy in them was past expression;-
But that was thirty years ago.

You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;
But I too had my festal days.

No merrier eyes have ever glistened

Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow,

Than when my youngest child was christened:-
But that was twenty years ago.

Time passed. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray;

One pet of four years old I've carried

Among the wild-flowered meads to play. In our old fields of childish pleasure, Where now, as then, the cowslips blow, She fills her basket's ample measure,— And that is not ten years ago.

But though first love's impassioned blindness
Has passed away in colder light,

I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.

The ever-rolling silent hours

Will bring a time we shall not know,

When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be an hundred years ago.

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Thomas Love Peacock [1785-1866]

TO HELEN

IF wandering in a wizard's car

Through yon blue ether, I were able

To fashion of a little star

A taper for my Helen's table;

"What then?" she asks me with a laughWhy, then, with all heaven's luster glowing, It would not gild her path with half

The light her love o'er mine is throwing!

Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839]

AT THE CHURCH GATE

From "Pendennis"

ALTHOUGH I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover;

And near the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.

The Minster bell tolls out
Above the city's rout,

And noise and humming;

They've hushed the Minster bell:

The organ 'gins to swell;

She's coming, she's coming!

My lady comes at last,

Timid, and stepping fast

And hastening hither,

With modest eyes downcast;

She comes-she's here-she's past!
May heaven go with her!

Kneel undisturbed, fair Saint!
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly;

I will not enter there,

To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.

But suffer me to pace

Round the forbidden place,

Lingering a minute,

Toujours Amour

Like outcast spirits, who wait,

And see, through heaven's gate,
Angels within it.

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William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863]

MABEL, IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

FAIREST of the fairest, rival of the rose,

That is Mabel of the Hills, as everybody knows.

1

Do you ask me near what stream this sweet floweret grows? That's an ignorant question, sir, as everybody knows.

Ask you what her age is, reckoned as time goes?
Just the age of beauty, as everybody knows.

Is she tall as Rosalind, standing on her toes?
She is just the perfect height, as everybody knows.

What's the color of her eyes, when they ope or close?
Just the color they should be, as everybody knows.

Is she lovelier dancing, or resting in repose?
Both are radiant pictures, as everybody knows.

Do her ships go sailing on every wind that blows?
She is richer far than that, as everybody knows.

Has she scores of lovers, heaps of bleeding beaux?
That question's quite superfluous, as everybody knows.

I could tell you something, if I only chose!-
But what's the use of telling what everybody knows?
James Thomas Fields[1816-1881]

TOUJOURS AMOUR

PRITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin,
At what age does Love begin?
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen
Summers three, my fairy queen,

But a miracle of sweets,
Soft approaches, sly retreats,
Show the little archer there,
Hidden in your pretty hair;
When didst learn a heart to win?
Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!

"Oh!" the rosy lips reply,
"I can't tell you if I try.
'Tis so long I can't remember:
Ask some younger lass than I!"

Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face,

Do your heart and head keep pace?
When does hoary Love expire,
When do frosts put out the fire?
Can its embers burn below
All that chill December snow?
Care you still soft hands to press,
Bonny heads to smooth and bless?
When does Love give up the chase?
Tell, O tell me, Grizzled-Face!

"Ah!" the wise old lips reply,

"Youth may pass and strength may die; But of Love I can't foretoken:

Ask some older sage than I!"

Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908]

THE DOORSTEP

THE Conference-meeting through at last,
We boys around the vestry waited
To see the girls come tripping past,
Like snow-birds willing to be mated.

Not braver he that leaps the wall
By level musket-flashes bitten,
Than I, that stepped before them all

Who longed to see me get the mitten.

The Doorstep

But no! she blushed and took my arm:
We let the old folks have the highway,
And started toward the Maple Farm
Along a kind of lovers' by-way.

I can't remember what we said,-
'Twas nothing worth a song or story;
Yet that rude path by which we sped
Seemed all transformed and in a glory.

The snow was crisp beneath our feet,

The moon was full, the fields were gleaming; By hood and tippet sheltered sweet,

Her face with youth and health was beaming.

The little hand outside her muff

(O sculptor! if you could but mold it) So lightly touched my jacket-cuff,

To keep it warm I had to hold it.

To have her with me there alone,-
'Twas love and fear and triumph blended:
At last we reached the foot-worn stone
Where that delicious journey ended.

The old folks, too, were almost home:
Her dimpled hand the latches fingered,

We heard the voices nearer come,

Yet on the doorstep still we lingered.

She shook her ringlets from her hood,

And with a "Thank you, Ned!" dissembled;

But yet I knew she understood

With what a daring wish I trembled.

A cloud passed kindly overhead,

The moon was slyly peeping through it,

Yet hid its face, as if it said-
"Come, now or never! do it! do it!"

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