| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
110 |
SONGS FOR GIRLHOOD. |
|||
|
Eound her eyes her tresses fell; Which were blackest none could tell; But long lashes veiled a light That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim, Made her tressy forehead dim: Thus she stood amid the stooks, Praising God with sweetest looks.
Sure, I said, Heaven did not mean Where I reap thou shouldst but glean ; Lay my sheaf adown, and come Share my harvest and my home. |
As restlessly her tiny hands
The blue checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice, As if a fault confessing.
"I'm sorry that I spelled the word:
I hate to go above you, Because "�the brown eyes lower fell�
" Because, you see, I love you !"
Still memory to a gray-haired man That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! The grasses on her grave Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school, How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and his loss, Like her�because they love him. |
|||
|
IN SCHOOL-DAYS. |
||||
|
J. G. Whittiee. |
||||
|
Still sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sunning; Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry vines are running.
Within, the master's desk is seen, Deep-scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats, The jack-knife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!
Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting, Lit up its western window-panes
And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls, And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed When all the school were leaving.
For near her stood the little boy.
Her childish favor singled, His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and shame were mingled.
Pushing with restless feet the snow, To right and left he lingered, |
||||
|
SEVEN TIMES TWO.
Jean Ingelow.
You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be, And let the brown meadow - lark's note, as he ranges, Come over, come over to me.
Yet birds' clearest carol, by fall or by swelling,
No magical sense conveys ; And bells have forgotten their old art of telling
The fortune of future days.
" Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheer-
iiy,
While a boy listened alone ; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself on a stone.
Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over: And mine, they are yet to be. No listening, no longing shall aught, aught dis�cover : You leave the story to me. |
||||