OH, yes, we mean all kind words that we say
To old friends and to new;
Yet doth this truth grow clearer day by day:
We love but few.
We love! we love! What easy words to say,
And sweet to hear,
When sunrise splendor brightens all the way,
And, far and near,
Are breath of flowers and carolling of birds,
And bells that chime;
Our hearts are light: we do not weigh our words
At morning time!
But when the matin music all is hushed,
And life's great load
Doth weigh us down, and thick with dust
Doth grow the road,
Then do we say less often that we love.
The words have grown!
With pleading eyes we look to Christ above,
And clasp our own.
Their lives are bound to ours by mighty bands
No mortal strait,
Nor Death himself, with his prevailing hands,
Can separate.
The world is wide, and many friends are dear,
And friendships true;
Yet do these words read plainer, year by year:
We love but few.
A SONG FOR THE GIRL I LOVE.
A SONG for the girl I love —
God love her!
A song for the eyes that tender shine,
And the fragant mouth that melts on mine,
The shimmering tresses uncontrolled
That clasp her neck with tendrils of gold;
And the blossom mouth and the dainty chin,
And the little dimples out and in
The girl I love
God love her!
A song for the girl I loved –
God loved her!
A song for the eyes of faded light,
And the cheek whose red rose waned to white,
And the quiet brow, with its shadow and gleam,
And the dark lashes drooped in a long, deep dream,
And the small hands crossed for their churchyard rest,
And the lilies dead on her sweet dead breast.
The girl I loved
God loved her!
THOU hast not gold? Why, this is gold
All clustering round thy forehead white;
And were it weighed, and were it told,
I could not say its worth to-night!
Thou hast not wit? Why, what is this
Wherewith thou capturest many a wight,
Who doth forget a tongue is his,
As I well-nigh forgot to-night?
Nor station? Well, ah, well! I own
Thou hast no place assured thee quite;
So now I raise thee to a throne;
Begin thy reign, my Queen, to-night.
I HOLD that we are wrong to seek
To put in words our deepest thought;
The purer things by Nature taught
Are turned to coarser when we speak.
The flower whose perfume charms the sense
Grows hard and common to the touch,
And love that's wordy overmuch
Is marred by its experience;
For love, like sympathy, hath bands
More strong in silence than in speech,
And hearts speak loudest, each to each,
Through meeting lips and clasp of hands.
Nor could I hope for fitting word
To form in speech the thoughts that start;
The inner core of every heart
Hath yearnings that are never heard.
They are too subtile, and transcend
The power of words to speak them right;
We therefore shut them out of sight,
To burn in silence to the end.
Yet even as the Magi held
Their sun as sacred, so I hold
My love is holy, sacred-souled,
And pure as sacred fire of eld.
Nor dare I stain with word or pen
This inner purer love to thee
Whose higher nature raiseth me
Beyond the common line of men.
THE fairest flower upon the vine -
So far above my reach it grows
I ne'er can hope to make it mine -
Smiles in the sun, a peerless rose.
The wind is whispering soft and low
Fond praises of its loveliness;
Its sweetness I can only guess,
But never know.
On beauteous lips as far away
As is the rose — a kiss there lies,
And on those lips that kiss must stay,
Though I may look with longing eyes;
A cruel fate hath willed it so,
Not mine that crimson mouth to press;
Its sweetness I can only guess,
But never know.
BEYOND the light-house, standing sentinel
Just where the line of earth and ocean meet,
The foam-crowned rollers slowly rose and fell
Upon the low reef with a murmurous beat.
And sweeping far away, like rippled gold,
Lay the wide bosom of the restless sea,
Where a brave ship down to the sky-line rolled,
Bearing afar the one most dear to me.
Slowly the broad moon dipped into the west,
And for a moment hung the waves above;
While borne along the ocean's lighted breast
The stout ship swiftly 'fore the strong wind drove.
Right in the sinking sphere she sailed at last,
Her tall sails bearing her right bravely on;
Out flashed a radiance, gilding hull and mast,
And in a moment ship and moon were gone.
And seeing this, my heart grew glad and light.
Though storms may roar along the restless main,
I know there is a limit to their might,
And I shall have my sweetheart's kiss again.
THINGS has come to a pretty pass
The whole wide country over,
When every married woman has
To have a friend or lover;
It ain't the way that I was raised,
And I hain't no desire
To have some feller pokin' round
Instead of my Josiar.
I never kin forget the day
That we went out a walkin',
An' sot down on the river-bank,
An' kep' on hours a talkin';
He twisted up my apron-string
An' folded it together,
An' said he thought for harvest time
'T was cur'us kind o' weather.
The sun went down as we sot there-
Josiar seemed uneasy;
An' mother she began to call :
"Looweezy, oh, Looweezy!"
An' then Josiar spoke right up,
As I was just a startin',
An' said, "Looweezy! what's the use
Of us two ever partin'?"
It kind o' took me by surprise,
An' yet I knew 't was comin';
I'd heard it all the summer long
In every wild bee's hummin';
I'd studied out the way I'd act, -
But law! I could n't do it ;
I meant to hide my love from him,
But seems as if he knew it.
An' lookin' down into my eyes
He must have seen the fire,
An' ever since that hour I've loved
An' worshipped my Josiar.
I can't tell what the women mean
Who let men fool around 'em,
Believin' all the nonsense that
They only say to sound 'em ;
I know, for one, I've never seen
The man that I'd admire
To have a hangin' after me
Instead of my Josiar.
HUMAN hopes and human creeds
Have their root in human needs,
And I would not wish to strip
From that washerwoman's lip
Any song that she may sing,
Any hope that she can bring;
For the woman has a friend
That will keep her to the end.
FRIENDSHIP needs no studied phrases,
Polished face, or winning wiles;
Friendship deals no lavish praises,
Friendship dons no surface smiles.
Friendship follows Nature's diction,
Shuns the blandishments of Art,
Boldly severs truth from fiction,
Speaks the language of the heart.
Friendship favors no condition,
Scorns a narrow-minded creed,
Lovingly fulfils its mission,
Be it word or be it deed.
Friendship cheers the faint and weary,
Makes the timid spirit brave,
Warns the erring, lights the dreary,
Smooths the passage to the grave.
Friendship - pure, unselfish friendship,
All through life's allotted span,
Nurtures, strengthens, widens, lengthens
Man's affinity with man.
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