Wherefore, then, if thou dost love me,
So to words of anger move me,
Corking of this face of mine,
Tricksy cousin Caroline?
When a sudden sound I hear,
Much my nervous system suffers,
Shaking through and through.
Cousin Caroline, I fear,
’Twas no other, now, but you,
Put gunpowder in the snuffers,
Springing such a mine!
Yes, it was your tricksy self,
Wicked-trickèd little elf,
Naughty Caroline!
Pins she sticks into my shoulder,
Places needles in my chair,
And, when I begin to scold her,
Tosses back her combèd hair,
With so saucy-vexed an air,
That the pitying beholder
Cannot brook that I should scold her:
Then again she comes, and bolder,
Blacks anew this face of mine,
Artful cousin Caroline!
Would she only say she’d love me,
Winsome, tinsome Caroline,
Unto such excess ’twould move me,
Teazing, pleasing, cousin mine!
That she might the live-long day
Undermine the snuffer-tray,
Tickle still my hookèd nose,
Startle me from calm repose
With her pretty persecution;
Throw the tongs against my shins,
Run me through and through with pins,
Like a piercèd cushion;
Would she only say she’d love me,
Darning-needles should not move me;
But, reclining back, I’d say,
“Dearest! there’s the snuffer-tray;
Pinch, O pinch those legs of mine!
Cork me, cousin Caroline!”
To a Forget-Me-Not,
found in my emporium of love-tokens.
Sweet flower, that with thy soft blue eye
Didst once look up in shady spot,
To whisper to the passer-by
Those tender words—Forget-me-not!
Though withered now, thou art to me
The minister of gentle thought,—
And I could weep to gaze on thee,
Love’s faded pledge—Forget-me-not!
Thou speak’st of hours when I was young,
And happiness arose unsought;
When she, the whispering woods among,
Gave me thy bloom—Forget-me-not!