II. Kiss me softly and speak to me low, Envy too has a watchful ear : Kiss me, dear ! III. Kiss me softly and speak to me low : Trust me, darling, the time is near Kiss me, dear! JOHN GODFREY SAXE. SLY THOUGHTS. “I saw him kiss your cheek!" "'Tis true." “O Modesty !” – “'T was strictly kept : He thought me asleep ; at least, I knew He thought I thought he thought I slept." COVENTRY PATHORE. THE KISS. 1. AMONG thy fancies tell me this : What is the thing we call a kiss ? It is a creature born and bred By love and warm desires fed ; It is an active flame, that flies And charms them there with lullabies ; Chor. And stills the bride too when she cries. Then to the chin, the cheek, the ear, 'Tis now far off, and then 't is near ; Chor. And here, and there, and everywhere. 1. Has it a speaking virtue? – 2. Yes. Part your joined lips, — then speaks your kiss ; Chor. And this love's sweetest language is. 1. Has it a body ? — 2. Ay, and wings, With thousand rare encolorings ; And as it flies it gently sings ; ROBERT HERRICK DINNA ASK ME. O, DINNA ask me gin I lo'e ye : Troth, I daurna tell ! Dinna ask me gin I lo'e ye, Ask it o' yoursel'. As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping With a pitcherof milk, from the fair of Coleraine, When she saw me she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled, And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain. “O, what shall I do now ? -— 't was looking at you now! Sure, sure, sucha pitcher I 'll ne'er meet again ! 'T was the pride of my dairy : 0 Barney M'Cleary! You're sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine." I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her, That such a misfortune should give hersuch pain. A kiss then I gave her; and ere did leave her, She vowed forsuch pleasure she'd break it again. ’T was hay-making season - I can't tell the rea 0, dinna look sae sair at me, For weel ye ken me true ; 0, gin ye look sae sair at me, I daurna look at you. When ye gang to yon braw braw town, And bonnier lassies see, 0, dinna, Jamie, look at them, Lest ye should mind na me. son For I could never bide the less That ye'd lo'e mair than me And 0, I'm sure my heart wad brak, Gin ye'd prove fause to mc1 Misfortunes will never come single, 't is plain ; For very soon after poor Kitty's disaster The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine. CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY. DUNLOP. THE WHISTLE. The moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve ! She leaned against the arméd man, The statue of the armed knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light. Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope ! my joy ! my Genevieve ! She loves me best, whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve. I played a soft and doleful air, That ruin wild and hoary. “You have heard," said a youth to his sweet heart, who stood, decline, wood ? I wish that that Danish boy's whistle were mine." “And what would you do with it !- tell me,” she said, While an arch smile played over her beautiful face. "I would blow it,” he answered ; "and then my fair maid Would fly to my side, and would here take her place." “Is that all you wish it for?- That may be yours Without any magic," the fair maiden cried : “A favor so slight one's good nature secures" ; And she playfully seated herself by his side. “I would blow it again," said the youth, "and the charm Would work so, that not even Modesty's check Would be able to keep from my neck your fine arm": She smiled, - and she laid her fine arm round his neck. “Yet once more would I blow, and the music divine Would bring me the third time an exquisite bliss : You would lay your fair cheek to this brown one of mine, And your lips, stealing past it, would give me a kiss." She listened with a flitting blush, But gaze upon her face. I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand ; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land. I told her how he pined : and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love Interpreted my own. She listened with a flitting blush, Too fondly on her face, And how she wept, and clasped his knees ; The scorn that crazed his brain ; And that she nursed him in a cave, A dying man he lay; Disturbed her soul with pity! The rich and balmy eve; Subdued and cherished long. 'T is to woo a bonnie lassie When the kye come hame, When the kye come hame. 'Tis not beneath the burgonet, Nor yet beneath the crown ; 'Tis not on couch o' velvet, Nor yet in bed o’ down : 'T is beneath the spreading birk, In the glen without the name, Wi' a bonnie bonnie lassie, When the kye come hame. There the blackbird bigs his nest, For the mate he lo'es to see, And on the tapmost bough 0, a happy bird is he! There he pours his melting ditty, And love is a' the theme ; And he 'll woo his bonnie lassie, When the kye come hame. When the blewart bears a pearl, And the daisy turns a pea, Has fauldit up his ee, Draps down and thinks nae shame When the kye come hame. See yonder pawky shepherd, That lingers on the hill : His yowes are in the fauld, And his lambs are lying still ; Yet he downa gang to bed, For his heart is in a flame, To meet his bonnie lassie When the kye come hame. When the little wee bit heart Rises high in the breast, Rises red in the east, That the heart can hardly frame! When the kye come hame. Then since all Nature joins In this love without alloy, O, wha wad prove a traitor To Nature's dearest joy? Or wha wad choose a crown, Wi' its perils an' its fame, And miss his bonnie lassie, When the kye come hame? JAMES HOGG. |