So by those words of yours I'm led
To send it you this day you wed.
Look well upon it. You, as I,
Should ask it now, without a sigh,
If love can lie as it lies dead.—
You have forgot.
A Ballad
of Sweethearts
Summer may come, in sun-blonde splendor,
To reap the harvest that Springtime sows;
And Fall lead in her old defender,
Winter, all huddled up in snows:
Ever a-south the love-wind blows
Into my heart, like a vane asway
From face to face of the girls it knows—
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.
If Carrie smile or Maud look tender,
Straight in my bosom the gladness glows;
But scarce at their side am I all surrender
When Gertrude sings where the garden grows:
And my heart is a bloom, like the red rose shows
For her hand to gather and toss away,
Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes—
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.
Let Laura pass, as a sapling slender,
Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose,—
Or Blanche or Helen,—to each I render
The worship due to the charms she shows:
But Mary's a poem when these are prose;
Here at her feet my life I lay;
All of devotion to her it owes—
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.
How can my heart of my hand dispose?
When Ruth and Clara, and Kate and May,
In form and feature no flaw disclose—
But who is the fairest it's hard to say.
Her
Portrait
Were I an artist, Lydia, I
Would paint you as you merit,
Not as my eyes, but dreams, descry;
Not in the flesh, but spirit.
The canvas I would paint you on
Should be a bit of heaven;
My brush, a sunbeam; pigments, dawn
And night and starry even.
Your form and features to express,
Likewise your soul's chaste whiteness,
I'd take the primal essences
Of darkness and of brightness.