And the street without was narrow,
And dusty, and hot, and mean;
But the bush that bore white roses,
She leaned to the fence between:
And softly she sought a crevice
In that barrier blank and tall,
And shyly she thrust out through it
Her loveliest bud of all.
And tender to touch, and gracious,
And pure as the moon's pure shine,
The full rose paled and was perfect,—
For whose eyes, for whose lips, but mine!
THE SPRING BEAUTIES
The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
"Happy be! for fair are ye!" the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,
Half parson-like, half soldierly.
The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes,
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;
And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass,
They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass,
All because the buff-coat Bee
Lectured them so solemnly:—
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
KINSHIP
A lily grew in the tangle,
In a flame red garment dressed,
And many a ruby spangle
Besprinkled her tawny breast.
And the silken moth sailed by her
With a swift and a snow-white sail;
Not a gilt-girt bee came nigh her,
Nor a fly in his gay green mail.
And the bronze-brown wings and the golden,
O'er the billowing meadows blown,
Were still as by magic holden
From the lily that flamed alone;