And through the morning hours all
(Prime) Singing above her broom she stood
And swept the house from hall to hall.
Then out she ran with tidings good
(Tierce) Across the field and down the lane,
To share them with the neighborhood.
Four miles she walked, and home again,
(Sexts) To sit through half the afternoon
And hear a feeble crone complain.
But when she saw the frosty moon
(Nones) And lakes of shadow on the hill,
Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon.
She threw her pitying apron frill
(Vespers) Over a little trembling mouse
When the sleek cat yawned on the sill.
In the late hours and drowsy house,
(Evensong) At last, too tired, beside her bed
She fell asleep — her prayers half said.
A Lady. [Amy Lowell]
You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colours.
My vigour is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust,
That its sparkle may amuse you.
The Child in Me. [May Riley Smith]