DEAR, let me dream of love,
Ah! though a dream it be!
I’ll ask no boon above
A word, a smile from thee:
At most, in some still hour, one kindly thought of me.
Sweet, let me gaze awhile
Into those radiant eyes!
I’ll scheme not to beguile
The heart, that deeper lies
Beneath them than yon star in night’s pellucid skies.
Love, let my spirit bow
In worship at thy shrine!
I’ll swear thou shalt not know
One word from lip of mine,
An instant’s pain to send through that shy soul of thine.
Selwyn Image.
A JUNE STORM.
SULLENLY fell the rain while under the oak we stood;
It hissed in the leaves above us, and big drops plashed to the ground,
And a horror of darkness fell over river and field and wood,
Where the trees were huddling together like children scared by a sound.
Then suddenly rang a note from a wildbird out of the trees
In quick response to a sunbeam, and lo, o’erhead it was fair,
And sweet was the smell of the meadow, and pleasant the hum of the bees,
As we look’d in each other’s eyes—and the raindrops shone in your hair.
Henry Jenner.
DOLCINO TO MARGARET.
THE world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
Can never come over again,
Sweet wife;
No, never come over again.
For woman is warm, though man be cold,
And the night will hallow the day;
Till the heart which at even was weary and old
Can rise in the morning gay,
Sweet wife;
To its work in the morning gay.
Charles Kingsley.