A valorous youth loved gran'ma then,
And wooed her in that auld lang syne;
And first he told his secret when
He sent the maid that valentine.
No perfumed page nor sheet of gold
Was that first hint of love he sent,
But with the secret gran'pa told—
"I love you"—gran'ma was content.
Go, ask your gran'ma, if you will,
If—though her head be bowed and gray—
If—though her feeble pulse be chill—
True love abideth not for aye;
By that quaint portrait on the wall,
That smiles upon her from above,
Methinks your gran'ma can recall
The sweet divinity of love.
Dear Elsie, here's no page of gold—
No sheet embossed with cunning art—
But here's a solemn pledge of old:
"I love you, love, with all my heart."
And if in what I send you here
You read not all of love expressed,
Go—go to gran'ma, Elsie dear,
And she will tell you all the rest!
THE WIND
(THE TALE)
Cometh the Wind from the garden, fragrant and full of sweet singing—
Under my tree where I sit cometh the Wind to confession.
"Out in the garden abides the Queen of the beautiful Roses—
Her do I love and to-night wooed her with passionate singing;
Told I my love in those songs, and answer she gave in her blushes—
She shall be bride of the Wind, and she is the Queen of the Roses!"
"Wind, there is spice in thy breath; thy rapture hath fragrance Sabaean!"
"Straight from my wooing I come—my lips are bedewed with her kisses—
My lips and my song and my heart are drunk with the rapture of loving!"