This was a song of years ago—
Of spring! Now drifting flowers of snow
Bloom on the window-sills as white
As gray-beard looking through love's light
And holding blue-veined hands the while.
He finds her last—the sweetest smile—
A-wooing of her still.
MY PLAYMATES.
The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool—
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checker-berries grow.
What has become of Ezra Marsh who lived on Baker's hill?
And what's become of Noble Pratt whose father kept the mill?
And what's become of Lizzie Crum and Anastasia Snell,
And of Roxie Root who 'tended school in Boston for a spell?
They were the boys and they the girls who shared my youthful play—
They do not answer to my call! My playmates—where are they?
What has become of Levi and his little brother Joe
Who lived next door to where we lived some forty years ago?
I'd like to see the Newton boys and Quincy Adams Brown,
And Hepsy Hall and Ella Cowles who spelled the whole school down!
And Gracie Smith, the Cutler boys, Leander Snow and all
Who I'm sure would answer could they only hear my call!
I'd like to see Bill Warner and the Conkey boys again
And talk about the times we used to wish that we were men!
And one—I shall not name her—could I see her gentle face
And hear her girlish treble in this distant, lonely place!
The flowers and hopes of springtime—they perished long ago
And the garden where they blossomed is white with winter snow.
O cottage 'neath the maples, have you seen those girls and boys
That but a little while ago made, oh! such pleasant noise?
O trees, and hills, and brooks, and lanes, and meadows, do you know
Where I shall find my little friends of forty years ago?
You see I'm old and weary, and I've traveled long and far;
I am looking for my playmates—I wonder where they are!
MEDIAEVAL EVENTIDE SONG.
Come hither, lyttel chylde, and lie upon my breast to-night,
For yonder fares an angell yclad in raimaunt white,
And yonder sings ye angell, as onely angells may,
And hys songe ben of a garden that bloometh farre awaye.
To them that have no lyttel chylde Godde sometimes sendeth down
A lyttel chylde that ben a lyttel lampkyn of His own,
And, if soe be they love that chylde, He willeth it to staye,
But, elsewise, in His mercie He taketh it awaye.