“How cruel of kitty to play in this way;”
Your friend on top of the hill,
If she were alive, now surely would say,
Alas, that her voice should be still!
That prattled of beautiful things.
In her grave on the hill the little one lies;
Her kitten at play in the hay;
And looking thereon a mother’s heart cries,
With grief she is pining away,
Like the butterfly’s sunder-torn wings.
TO ——
Were I an artist, I would paint thee thus:—
Tall, lithe and slender, like a Grecian youth
In flowing garb, whose lines enhance the form,
A face whose soul is innocence and truth,
And eyes of dreamy love, that blesses us
With gladness, like the sunlight after storm.
Were I a master of sweet music, I
Would turn the rhythm of thy motion, and
Thy voice and laughter into melody,
A symphony, fit for a royal band,
With joy of glitt’ring waves and zephyr’s sigh
With love’s entrancement and pure ecstasy.
But I, alas, have nothing but a rhyme,
In which to clothe the pleasure of an hour,—
An hour amid the fields and on the stream;
I picked for thee the rarest, sweetest flower,
A wild rose, mingling odor with the thyme,
Since that seems truest of a poet’s dream.
FAREWELL
Farewell, dear lass, it grieves me much
That thou must leave us here alone,
Thou gav’st our summer months a touch
Of happiness, as seldom known,
Thou gavest such a sunny cheer,
That every day seemed like a play,
And now, when autumn’s winds blow drear,
Thou needs must go so far away!
The leaves lie yellow on the lawn,
The blackbirds gather into flocks,
The thrush and lark have long since gone,
The crows sit cawing on the rocks,
The heavy clouds soar wild and black
Across the meadows, sear with frost,
I stand alone beneath their wrack,
And feel that summer’s joy is lost.
But I shall ne’er forget thy smile,
And ever in my heart shall ring
The laughter which did e’er beguile
Each brooding care to take its wing,
Thy winsomeness which woke my soul
From lethargy’s dun dreariness
Shall leave a glamour over all,
And even winter’s darkness bless.