O columbine, open your folded wrapper, And show me your nest with the young ones in it I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet— You bells in the steeple, ring, ring out your changes, How many soever they be, And let the brown meadow-lark's note as he ranges Come over, come over to me. Yet bird's clearest carol by fall or by swelling No magical sense conveys, And bells have forgotten their old art of telling The fortune of future days. "Turn again, turn again," once they rang cheerily, While a boy listened alone; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily Poor bells! I forgive you; your good days are over, No listening, no longing shall aught, aught discover: You leave the story to me. The foxglove shoots out of the green matted heather, And haugeth her hoods of snow; She was idle, and slept till the sunshiny weather: I wish, and I wish that the spring would go faster, And I could grow on like the foxglove and aster, I wait for the day when dear hearts shall discover, "The child is a woman, the book may close over. I wait for my story—the birds cannot sing it, The bells cannot ring it, but long years, O bring it! I LEANED Out of window, I smelt the white clover, Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate; "Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover“Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait Till I listen and hear If a step draweth near, "The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer, Let the sweet waters flow, And cross quickly to me. "You night-moths that hover where honey brims over From sycamore blossoms, or settle or sleep; You glowworms, shine out, and the pathway discover "Too deep for swift telling; and yet my one lover Then all the sweet speech I had fashioned took flight; But I'll love him more, more Than e'er wife loved before, Be the days dark or bright. SEVEN TIMES FOUR. MATERNITY. HEIGH HO! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall! When the wind wakes how they rock in the grasses, And dance with the cuckoo-buds slender and small! Here's two bonny boys, and here's mother's own lasses, Eager to gather them all Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups! Mother shall thread them a daisy chain; Sing them a song of the pretty hedge-sparrow. That loved her brown little ones, loved them full fain; Sing, "Heart, thou art wide though the house be but Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow; A ship sails afar over warm ocean waters, And haply one musing doth stand at her prow. Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups, Fair yellow daffodils, stately and tall A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall! Send down on their pleasure smiles passing its measure, God that is over us all! I SLEEP and rest, my heart makes moan Before I am well awake; "Let me bleed! O let me alone, Since I must not break!" For children wake, though fathers sleep O sleepless God, forever keep, I lift mine eyes, and what to see I have not wished it to mourn with meComfort is not there. O what anear but golden brooms, O what afar but the fine glooms I shall not die, but live forlore- O to meet thee, my love, once more! No more to hear, no more to see! I should know it how faint soe'er, Or once between the gates of gold, SEVEN TIMES SIX. GIVING IN MARRIAGE To bear, to nurse, to rear, |