WHERE the thistle lifts a purple crown
Six foot out of the turf,

And the harebell shakes on the windy hill-
O the breath of the distant surf!-

The hills look over on the South,

And southward dreams the sea;

And, with the sea-breeze hand in hand,
Came innocence and she.

Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry
Red for the gatherer springs,
Two children did we stray and talk
Wise, idle, childish things.

She listened with big-lipped surprise,
Breast-deep with flower and spine:
Her skin was like a grape, whose veins
Run snow instead of wine.

She knew not those sweet words she spake,
Nor knew her own sweet way;

But there's never a bird, so sweet a song
Thronged in whose throat that day!

Oh, there were flowers in Storrington
On the turf and on the spray;
But the sweetest flower on Sussex hills
Was the Daisy-flower that day!

Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face!
She gave me tokens three:-

A look, a word of her winsome mouth,
And a wild raspberry.

A berry red, a guileless look,

A still word,-strings of sand!

And yet they made my wild, wild heart
Fly down to her little hand.

For standing artless as the air,
And candid as the skies,

She took the berries with her hand,
And the love with her sweet eyes.

The fairest things have fleetest end:
Their scent survives their close,

But the rose's scent is bitterness
To him that loved the rose!

She looked a little wistfully,

Then went her sunshine way:

The sea's eye had a mist on it,
And the leaves fell from the day.

She went her unremembering way,
She went and left in me

The pang of all the partings gone,
And partings yet to be.

Agnes

She left me marveling why my soul
Was sad that she was glad;

At all the sadness in the sweet,
The sweetness in the sad.

Still, still I seemed to see her, still
Look up with soft replies,

And take the berries with her hand,
And the love with her lovely eyes.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends,
That is not paid with moan;
For we are born in others' pain,
And perish in our own.

329

Francis Thompson [1859?-1907]

AGNES

I SAW her in childhood- -a bright, gentle thing,
Like the dawn of the morn, or the dews of the spring:
The daisies and hare-bells her playmates all day;

Herself as light-hearted and artless as they.

I saw her again-a fair girl of eighteen,

Fresh glittering with graces of mind and of mien.
Her speech was all music; like moonlight she shone;
The envy of many, the glory of one.

Years, years fleeted over-I stood at her foot:

The bud had grown blossom, the blossom was fruit.

A dignified mother, her infant she bore;

And looked, I thought, fairer than ever before.

I saw her once more-'twas the day that she died;
Heaven's light was around her, and God at her side;
No wants to distress her, no fears to appal-

O then, I felt, then she was fairest of all!

Henry Francis Lyte [1793-1847]

THE GYPSY GIRL

PASSING I saw her as she stood beside
A lonely stream between two barren wolds;
Her loose vest hung in rudely gathered folds
On her swart bosom, which in maiden pride
Pillowed a string of pearls; among her hair
Twined the light bluebell and the stone-crop gay;
And not far thence the small encampment lay,
Curling its wreathèd smoke into the air.
She seemed a child of some sun-favored clime;
So still, so habited to warmth and rest;
And in my wayward musings on past time,
When my thought fills with treasured memories,
That image nearest borders on the blest

Creations of pure art that never dies.

Henry Alford [1810-1871]

FANNY

A SOUTHERN BLOSSOM

COME and see her as she stands,
Crimson roses in her hands;

And her eyes

Are as dark as Southern night,

Yet than Southern dawn more bright,

And a soft, alluring light

In them lies.

None deny if she beseech

With that pretty, liquid speech

Of the South.

All her consonants are slurred,
And the vowels are preferred;
There's a poem in each word
From that mouth.

Even Cupid is her slave;
Of her arrows, half he gave

Somebody's Child

331

Her one day

In a merry, playful hour.

Dowered with these and beauty's dower,

Strong indeed her magic power,

So they say.

Venus, not to be outdone
By her generous little son,
Shaped the mouth

Very like to Cupid's bow.

Lack-a-day! Our North can show
No such lovely flowers as grow

In the South!

Anne Reeve Aldrich [1866-1892]

SOMEBODY'S CHILD

JUST a picture of Somebody's child,—
Sweet face set in golden hair,

Violet eyes, and cheeks of rose,
Rounded chin, with a dimple there,

Tender eyes where the shadows sleep,
Lit from within by a secret ray,—
Tender eyes that will shine like stars
When love and womanhood come this way:

Scarlet lips with a story to tell,—

Blessed be he who shall find it out,

Who shall learn the eyes' deep secret well,
And read the heart with never a doubt.

Then you will tremble, scarlet lips,

Then you will crimson, loveliest cheeks:
Eyes will brighten and blushes will burn
When the one true lover bends and speaks.

But she's only a child now, as you see,
Only a child in her careless grace:
When Love and Womanhood come this way
Will anything sadden the flower-like face?

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]