¶ Across the Street.

ITH lash on cheek, she comes and goes

W"

I watch her when she little knows :
I wonder if she dreams of it.

Sitting and working at my rhymes,
I weave into my verse, at times
Her sunny hair, or gleams of it.

Upon her window-ledge is set
A box of flowering mignonette;

Morning and eve she tends to them-
The senseless flowers, that do not care
About that loosened strand of hair,
As prettily she bends to them.

If I could once contrive to get
Into that box of mignonette

Some morning when she tends to them
She comes! I see the rich blood rise

From throat to cheek!-down go the eyes
Demurely, as she bends to them!

Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

3

25

Sephestia's

WE

EEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old, there's grief enough for
thee.

Mother's wag, pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.
When thy father first did see
Such a boy by him and me,
He was glad, I was woe;
Fortune changed made him so
When he left his pretty boy,
Last his sorrow, first his joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old, there's grief enough for thee.
Streaming tears that never stint,

Like pearl drops from a flint,

Fell by course from his eyes,
That one another's place supplies:

27

Sephestia's Song to her Child.

Thus he grieved in every part,
Tears of blood fell from his heart,
When he left his pretty boy,

Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old, there's grief enough for thee.
The wanton smiled, father wept;
Mother cried, baby leapt:

More he crowed, more we cried,
Nature could not sorrow hide.
He must go, he must kiss
Child and mother, baby bless:
For he left his pretty boy,
Father's sorrow, father's joy.

Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee,
When thou art old, there's grief enough for thee.

From "Menaphon," 1589, by Robert Greene.

Please

I'

¶ "Please to Ring the Belle."

་

'LL tell you a story that's not in Tom Moore:

Young love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door:

So he called upon Lucy-'twas just ten o'clock— Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock.

Now a hand-maid, whatever her fingers be at,
Will run like a puss when she hears a rat-tat :
So Lucy ran up-and in two seconds more
Had question'd the stranger and answer'd the door.

The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe;
For the moment will come when such comers must go.
So she kissed him and whisper'd-poor innocent
thing-

"The next time you come, love, pray come with a

ring."

Thomas Hood, 1798— 1845.

28

Sonnet.

A

Sonnet.

LEXIS, here she stayed; among these pines,

Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair;

Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,

More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines;
She sat her by these muskèd eglantines-

The happy place the print seems yet to bear;
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines,

To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear;

Me here she first perceived, and here a morn

Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face;

Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born,
And I first got a pledge of promised grace;

But ah! what served it to be happy so

Sith passed pleasures double but new woe?

William Drummond, 1585-1649.

Sonnet.

29