Oh, song of birds, and flowers fair to see!
Why should I thirst for far-off Eden-isles,
When I may hear her discourse melody,
And bask, a dreamer, in her dreamy smiles?
Joel Elias Spingarn [1875-
ADVICE TO A LOVER
Oh, if you love her,
Show her the best of you;
So will you move her
To bear with the rest of you.
Coldness and jealousy
Cannot but seem to her
Signs that a tempest lurks
Where was sunbeam to her.
Patience, and tenderness
Still will awake in her
Hopes of new sunshine,
Though the storm break for her;
Love, she will know, for her,
Like the blue firmament,
Under the tempest lies
Gentle and permanent.
Nor will she ever
Gentleness find the less
When the storm overblown
Leaveth clear kindliness.
Deal with her tenderly,
Skylike above her,
Smile on her waywardness,
Oh, if you love her!
S. Charles Jellicoe [18 —
"YES"
They stood above the world,
In a world apart;
And she dropped her happy eyes,
And stilled the throbbing pulses
Of her happy heart.
And the moonlight fell above her,
Her secret to discover;
And the moonbeams kissed her hair,
As though no human lovers
Had laid his kisses there.
"Look up, brown eyes," he said,
"And answer mine;
Lift up those silken fringes
That hide a happy light
Almost divine."
The jealous moonlight drifted
To the finger half-uplifted,
Where shone the opal ring—
Where the colors danced and shifted
On the pretty, changeful thing.