Robert Grant.
[9] Pronounced papaire.
COULD SHE HAVE GUESSED.
Could she have guessed my coward care?
I knew her foot upon the stair,
Her figure chained my inmost eye;
I only looked a lover's lie,—
I feigned indifference, felt despair.
My very blood leaped up, aware
Of her free step and morning air;
She raised her head, she caught my eye—
Could she have guessed?
I faced her with a chilly stare,
With words so common and so bare!
Her whispering skirts, as she went by,
Swept every sense—a thrilling sigh!
Ah, would her heart have heard my prayer
Could she have guessed?
Elaine Goodale.
FIRST SIGHT.
When first we met the nether world was white,
And on the steel-blue ice before her bower
I skated in the sunrise for an hour,
Till all the grey horizon, gulphed in light,
Was red against the bare boughs black as night;
Then suddenly her sweet face, like a flower
Enclosed in sables from the frost's dim power,
Shone at her casement, and flashed burning bright
When first we met!