THE HUGUENOT LOVERS
Sorrowful pleading on her face is written
With love commingled, and my heart throbs fast,
Flooded with currents of a deep emotion
Stirred by the memory of that awful past.
Note the sad gaze of him who bends above her,
What say his eyes in answer to her own?
What did he think as tenderly he kissed her?
What was the meaning of his whispered tone?
Spoke he of honor's claim poor love's outweighing,
Or did her circling arms so well enfold
That the white kerchief wearing-badge of safety—
He passed the lurking foe with spirit bold.
Ah, they are vanished now—the maid and lover,
Their history the wisest cannot tell.
Mayhap upon that night of cruel slaughter,
Eager to meet the zealot's hate he fell.
Mayhap in some fair corner of the Kingdom,
Under the gentler rule of brave Navarre,
They showed the kerchief to their children's children,
And told the story of the unholy war.
TO JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE
Gay Summer sees the flowering
Of buds that were the gift of Spring;
And Winter counts the ripened sheaves
That Autumn harvested. Who grieves
When he at length has won the race,
Or backward then his way would trace?
Oh, honored Poet, Wit, and Sage,
This birthday marks an open page,
And here before its record's writ,
These words we would inscribe on it.
"Thou, upon whom thy years fourscore
So lightly sit, thou hast a store
Of memories such as they alone
May have whose hearts all truth have known.
Now may this year bring thee no less
Than all the past of happiness!"
(On his eightieth birthday.)
WEED OR FLOWER