FullReads

iv

‘Twas busy now I had to be,
And keep myself neat,
Dress in my new black gown by tea,
And streamer’d cap to it.
The brisk young men were plenty enough,
And talk about them plenty
Among us maids! No other stuff
Contents the tongue at twenty.

But Mother’s words came back to me,
Told when I was little:
Mind you, the tongue’s your only key,
And what it guards is brittle.
Love is the best; let go the rest,
But hold him by the wing
Until he’s plumaged for the test–
Then let him soar and sing.

I took no harm of all their talk–
All talkt the same–
Tho’ more than one askt me to walk
When my Sunday came;
But I held fast the dream I’d had
In the old farm,
And saw myself beside my lad,
My hand on his arm.

v

A year went on, and twenty-one
Saw me discarded.
They laught at me for constancy
Ne’er to be rewarded.
Then came a warm, still day of May
And brought me a letter.
I blusht so red, the cook she said,
Lucky man to get her!

At half-past three he came for me;
I dared not speak;
But there was all he need to see
Flaming in my cheek.
What better has the best of us
If kind Heaven grant her
A glowing hearth, a little house,
And a good man to want her?

In the soft shrouding clinging mist
His strong arms held me.
Our lips kept tryst, and long we kiss’d;
His great love fill’d me.
Sweet is the warmth of summer weather,
But the best fire I know
Is of two pair of lips together,
Two hearts in one glow.

His love he told, that made me bold
To look at him fairly,
And see the burning blush take hold
And colour him up rarely.
Within his ply though caught was I,
I backt a saucy head:
“Oh, I was shy a year gone by–
Your turn now,” I said.

vi

Now would you prove the man I love
As I saw him then?
He was of them who’re slow to move,
One of your still men;
One of your men self-communing
Who see sheep on a hill,
Ships out at sea or birds a-wing
Where you see nil.

And what they see they seldom say,
Holding speech to be vain;
And yet so kin to earth are they
They smell the coming rain.
The earth can teach them without speech,
They know as they are known–
Why should they preach to the out-of-reach,
Or counsel Nature’s own?

He never was a man to talk,
He was too wise;
But things he’d see out on his walk
Would blind another’s eyes.
But when it came to speak about them
‘Twas another thing.
He’d say, “What use is it to shout them?
I want to sing!”

A smallish head, with jet-black hair
And eyes grey-blue,
You felt when’er he lookt you fair
That he must be true;
And when he smil’d his dear and shy way
Sidelong his mouth,
I always thought the sun fell my way
And the wind South.

So I possest the knowledge blest
That Love had held him fast
Since the day our eyes confest,
The first time and the last.
“Since then,” he said, “I never durst
Look at you at all,
For fear you’d see the hunger and thirst
That kept me like a thrall.