Then silent closes the door
At the sound of the last old chime,
And the key—Forevermore—
Is turned by the keeper—Time!
Under the Holly Bough
When the hale year laughed in the prime of May,
And each path was a lure to the truant eye,
When the south-wind sang: “Come away! Come away!”
(Ah, but the blue of a vernal sky!)
When the vireo’s voice was a lyric cry,
’Twas the bloom o’ the apple beckoned us; now
When we meet, my sweet, for the trysting, why,
’Tis under the green of the holly bough!
When the meadows swooned in the dazzling day,
And the hilltops seemed in a dream to lie,
When shrill was the locust’s roundelay,
(Ah, but the glow of a summer sky!)
When the stream-song sank to a rippling sigh,
’Twas the pleach o’ the elm-leaves beckoned us; now
When we meet, my sweet, for the trysting, why,
’Tis under the green of the holly bough!
When the woodland gleamed like a prismy ray,
And the distance drowsed in a golden dye,
When vineyard and orchard aisles were gay
(Ah, but the depths of an autumn sky!)
With stains like a web of Tyrian ply,
’Twas the flame o’ the maple beckoned us; now
When we meet, my sweet, for the trysting, why,
’Tis under the green of the holly bough!
ENVOY
Spring, summer and autumn have all sped by,
(Ah, but the chill of a winter sky!)
Yet love still calls to the tryst, and now
’Tis under the green of the holly bough!
Cosette’s Christmas
Cosette they called her; Cosette, that was all;
Fragile she was and flower-like, slim and tall
For her eleven years, wherein her heart
Had known but little save the world’s sharp smart.
Never her ear had heard a mother’s croon;
Never for her, about the break of June,
Had been outstretched a father’s shielding hand
To guide her woodward through the smiling land.
The streets oppressed her with their cruel roar;
The birds she saw above her dart and soar,
Theirs was the life she longed for, not to be
Mewed within walls that were a gloom to see,
And stung with taunts from a virago tongue
That aged her spirit yearning to be young.
Foundling,—a fate that brooked of no appeal
Was hers by some inexorable seal.
Backward and forward oft she went and came
From the grim spot, that was but home in name,
On casual errandry. It chanced one day,
As she passed swiftly on her timid way,
(’Twas near the season of the Christ-child’s birth,
The happy tide of peace and love on earth)
A heedless hand struck from her feeble grasp
The glass she strove so carefully to clasp,
And she beheld it, with a plaintive cry,
Shattered before her on the pavement lie.
The throng swept by, and caught her in its swirl;
There was no lip to soothe the sobbing girl,
No kindliness to aid her. A great fear
Clutched at her breast; she knew the stabbing jeer,
The pitiless blows that waited her when she
Told the ill outcome of her errandry.
Then through her brain there flashed a sudden word
That in the hive-like purlieus she had heard,
And filled her mind with sunshine. No affright
Touched her with chill at thought of death’s dim night,
For she recalled how once the preacher said
That in white lily-gardens walk the dead.
So in she stole at the accustomed door,
Sought out a room upon the lower floor
Wherein the porter, sullen-visaged, slept;
Toward a remembered drawer on tiptoe crept,
Plucked, undetected, thence a shining thing,
And gained again the street in triumphing.
A ringing shot, a little piteous moan,
And a child’s blood encrimsoning the stone!
When Cosette oped her heavy-lidded eyes,
Wonder assailed her, and a great surmise.
Was this the lily-land of her delight?
It shone so bare, and yet so very white!
Long stainless walls and little cots in rows,
And one whose smile invited to repose;
She drowsed, her mind still dwelling on that face,
And dreamed she’d found the angels’ sleeping-place.
And when, next day, they told her where she lay,
A tiny tear-drop found its mournful way
Adown the death-like pallor of her cheek;
She closed her eyes and sighed, but did not speak.