714

My lad, if you, without abuse,

Will take advice from one who's wiser,
And put his wisdom to more use

Than ever yet did your adviser;
If you will let, as none will do,
Another's heartbreak serve for two,

You'll have a care, some four years hence,
How you lounge there by yonder fence
And blow those kisses through that screen-
For Lydia will be seventeen.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837–1907]

A PRIMROSE DAME

SHE has a primrose at her breast,
I almost wish I were a Tory.
I like the Radicals the best;
She has a primrose at her breast;
Now is it chance she so is dressed,

Or must I tell a story?

She has a primrose at her breast,
I almost wish I were a Tory.

IF

Gleason White [1852

OH, if the world were mine, Love,
I'd give the world for thee!

Alas! there is no sign, Love,
Of that contingency.

Were I a king,-which isn't

To be considered now,

A diadem had glistened

Upon that lovely brow.

Had fame with laurels crowned me,-
She hasn't, up to date,—

Nor time nor change had found me
To love and thee ingrate.

An Irish Love-Song

If Death threw down his gage, Love,
Though life is dear to me,

I'd die, e'en of old age, Love,

To win a smile from thee.

But being poor, we part, dear,

And love, sweet love, must die;

Thou wilt not break thy heart, dear,
No more, I think, shall I!

715

James Jeffrey Roche [1847-1908]

DON'T

YOUR eyes were made for laughter;
Sorrow befits them not;

Would you be blithe hereafter,
Avoid the lover's lot.

The rose and lily blended

Possess your cheeks so fair;

Care never was intended

To leave his furrows there.

Your heart was not created

To fret itself away,

By being unduly mated

To common human clay.

But hearts were made for loving-
Confound philosophy!

Forget what I've been proving,

Sweet Phyllis, and love me!

James Jeffrey Roche [1847-1908]

AN IRISH LOVE-SONG

IN the years about twenty
(When kisses are plenty)

The love of an Irish lass fell to my fate

So winsome and sightly,

So saucy and sprightly,

The priest was a prophet that christened her Kate.

Soft gray of the dawning,

Bright blue of the morning,

The sweet of her eye there was nothing to mate;

A nose like a fairy's,

A cheek like a cherry's,

And a smile-well, her smile was like-nothing but Kate.

To see her was passion,

To love her, the fashion;

What wonder my heart was unwilling to wait!
And, daring to love her,

I soon did discover

A Katherine masking in mischievous Kate.

No Katy unruly

But Katherine, truly

Fond, serious, patient, and even sedate;

With a glow in her gladness

That banishes sadness

Yet stay! Should I credit the sunshine to Kate?

Love cannot outlive it,

Wealth cannot o'ergive it

The saucy surrender she made at the gate.

O Time, be but human,

Spare the girl in the woman!

You gave me my Katherine-leave me my Kate!

Robert Underwood Johnson [1853

GROWING OLD

SWEET sixteen is shy and cold,

Calls me "sir," and thinks me old;
Hears in an embarrassed way
All the compliments I pay;

Finds my homage quite a bore,
Will not smile on me, and more
To her taste she finds the noise
And the chat of callow boys.

In Explanation

Not the lines around my eye,
Deepening as the years go by;

Not white hairs that strew my head,
Nor my less elastic tread;

Cares I find, nor joys I miss,

Make me feel my years like this:

Sweet sixteen is shy and coid,

Calls me "sir," and thinks me old.

Walter Learned [1847

TIME'S REVENGE

WHEN I was ten and she fifteen-
Ah, me! how fair I thought her.
She treated with disdainful mien

The homage that I brought her,
And, in a patronizing way,
Would of my shy advances say:

"It's really quite absurd, you see;
He's very much too young for me."
I'm twenty now, she twenty-five-
Well, well! how old she's growing.
I fancy that my suit might thrive
If pressed again; but, owing
To great discrepancy in age,
Her marked attentions don't engage
My young affections, for, you see,
She's really quite too old for me.
Walter Learned [1847-

IN EXPLANATION

HER lips were so near

That-what else could I do?

You'll be angry, I fear.
But her lips were so near-
Well, I can't make it clear,

Or explain it to you.
But her lips were so near
That-what else could I do?

Walter Learned [1847

717

OMNIA VINCIT

LONG from the lists of love I stood aloof

My heart was steeled and I was beauty-proof;
Yet I, unscathed in many a peril past,
Lo! here am I defeated at the last.

My practice was, in easy-chair reclined,
Superior-wise to speak of womankind,
Waving away the worn-out creed of love
To join the smoke that wreathed itself above.

Love, I said in my wisdom, Love is dead,
For all his fabled triumphs—and instead
We find a calm affectionate respect,

Doled forth by Intellect to Intellect.

Yet when Love, taking vengeance, smote me sore,
My Siren called me from no classic shore;

It was no Girton trumpet that laid low
The walls of this Platonic Jericho.

For when my peace of mind at length was stole,

I thought no whit of Intellect or Soul,

Nay! I was cast in pitiful distress

By brown eyes wide with truth and tenderness.

Alfred Cochrane [1865

A PASTORAL

ALONG the lane beside the mead
Where cowslip-gold is in the grass
I matched the milkmaid's easy speed,
A tall and springing country lass:
But though she had a merry plan
To shield her from my soft replies,
Love played at Catch-me-if-you-Can
In Mary's eyes.