Young is she, and slight to view In her home-made cambric dresses: Are her sweet eyes grey or blue? Shade of twilight are her tresses. Fairy-fine at first she seems; But a longer look confesses She's more wholesome stuff than dreams! (Yet I mind an April moon Shining down an orchard alley: From one book, companions boon, There we read "Love In The Valley." And I saw bright phantoms race, Thousand phantoms fleet and rally All across her lighted face.) Once, within that ancient ground Where her fathers all lie sleeping, She, beside a recent mound, Still and tender, but not weeping, Stood: that picture on my heart Fair am I forever keeping: With that look I would not part. O but in her maiden days How she led the children trooping Through the old familiar plays! Up her sash and flounces looping, If the tiniest lost his cue, To his side she ran, and stooping, Caught his hand and danced him through. Met you her in Hemlock Wood In the white midwinter weather, When the pine's a tufted hood And the fern's a crystal feather? Heard you then her yodel sweet And a far reply, together Float in echo where they meet? Ariel voice, from range to range Lightly tossed and sweetly flying! All her notes to murmurs change When the winter light is dying: All in magic murmurs she Laps and lulls the wee one lying, Pearl of twilight, on her knee. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THEN LAUGH by BERTHA ADAMS BACKUS INLAND by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY THE ONE LOST by ISAAC ROSENBERG HEALTHFUL OLD AGE, FR. AS YOU LIKE IT by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AN EVENING LULL by WALT WHITMAN ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 3. TO A FRIEND UNSUCCESSFUL IN LOVE by MARK AKENSIDE THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD: TRANSLATION by CAIUS PEDO ALBINOVANUS A CHRISTMAS CAMP ON THE SAN GABR'EL by AMELIA EDITH HUDDLESTON BARR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA NIGHT (STRAITS OF CARQUINEZ) by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |