Valentine
This is the time for birds to mate;
To-day the dove
Will mark the ancient amorous date
With moans of love;
The crow will change his call to prate
His hopes thereof.
The starling will display the red
That lights his wings;
The wren will know the sweet things said
By him who swings
And ducks and dips his crested head
And sings and sings.
They are obedient to their blood,
Nor ask a sign,
Save buoyant air and swelling bud,
At hands divine,
But choose, each in the barren wood,
His valentine.
In caution's maze they never wait
Until they die;
They flock the season's open gate
Ere time steals by.
Love, shall we see and imitate,
You, love, and I?
A Photograph
When in this room I turn in pondering pace
And find thine eyes upon me where I stand,
Led on, as by Enemo's silken strand,
I come and gaze and gaze upon thy face.
Framed round by silence, poised on pearl-white grace
Of curving throat, too sweet for beaded band,
It seems as if some wizard's magic wand
Had wrought thee for the love of all the race.
Dear face, that will not turn about to see
The tulips, glorying in the casement sun,
Or, other days, the drizzled raindrops run
Down the damp walls, but follow only me,
Would that Pygmalion's goddess might be won
To change this lifeless image into thee!
Jesse Covington
If I have had some merry times
In roaming up and down the earth,
Have made some happy-hearted rhymes
And had my brimming share of mirth,
And if this song should live in fame
When my brief day is dead and gone,
Let it recall with mine the name
Of old man Jesse Covington.
Let it recall his waggish heart—
Yeke-hey, yeke-hey, hey-diddle-diddle—
When, while the fire-logs fell apart,
He snatched the bow across his fiddle,
And looked on, with his eyes half shut,
Which meant his soul was wild with fun,
At our mad capers through the hut
Of old man Jesse Covington.
For all the thrilling tales he told,
For all the tunes the fiddle knew,
For all the glorious nights of old
We boys and he have rollicked through,
For laughter all unknown to wealth
That roared responsive to a pun,
A hale, ripe age and ruddy health
To old man Jesse Covington!