"He's sweetest friend, or hardest foe, I either hate or . . love him so, "You trust a woman who puts forth, "Such love's a cowslip-ball to fling, A moment's pretty pastime ; I give.. all me, if anything, The first time and the last time. "Dear neighbour of the trellised house, MY KATE. SHE was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow My Kate. Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; My Kate. Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone I doubt if she said to you much that could act My Kate. 'T was her thinking of others, made you think of her— My Kate. She never found fault with you, never implied My Kate. None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall; meant, But the charm of her presence was felt when she went My Kate. The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, It always was so with her: see what you have! She has made the grass greener even here . . with her grave My Kate. My dear one!—when thou wast alive with the rest, My Kate? A FALSE STEP SWEET, thou hast trod on a heart. Must do such things now and then. Thou only hast stepped unaware,— And why should a heart have been there It was not a stone that could trip, Nor was it a thorn that could rend: Put up thy proud underlip! 'T was merely the heart of a friend. And yet peradventure one day Thou, sitting alone at the glass, Remarking the bloom gone away, Where the smile in its dimplement was, And seeking around thee in vain From hundreds who flattered before, Such a word as, "Oh, not in the main Do I hold thee less precious, but more!" Thou 'lt sigh, very like, on thy part, "Of all I have known or can know, I wish I had only that Heart I trod upon ages ago!" THE MASK. I HAVE a smiling face, she said, Grief taught to me this smile, she said, And Wrong did teach this jesting bold; These flowers were plucked from garden-bcd While a death-chime was tolled And what now will you say? she said. Behind no prison-grate, she said, Which slurs the sunshine half a mile, Live captives so uncomforted As souls behind a smile. I know my face is bright, she said,— The sign of what I lose, The ending of my day, she said. If I dared leave this smile, she said, And since that must not be, she said, I fain your bitter world would leave. But in your bitter world, she said, Grief's earnest makes life's play, she said. Ye weep for those who weep? she said--- Go, weep for those whose hearts have bled A YEAR'S SPINNING. He listened at the porch that day, He sat beside me, with an oath A young man's wooing as I spun: I thought-O God !-my first-born's cry It was the silence made me groan! Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave (Who cursed me on her death-bed lone) And my dead baby's (God it save!) A stone upon my heart and head, |