NEW POEMS
Laughs at a jest; or with a shy
Glance of a parti-coloured eye
Half brown, half gold, approves delights
And warms the slave for whom she writes!
So dear, may you be never done
Your pretty, busy round to run.
And show, with changing frocks and scents
Your ever-varying lineaments,
Your saucy step, your languid grace,
Your sullen and your smiling face,
Sound sense, true valour, baby fears,
And bright unreasonable tears:
The Hebe of our aging tribe:
Matron and child, my friend and scribe!
III
About my fields, in the broad sun
And blaze of noon, there goeth one,[1]
Barefoot and robed in blue, to scan
With the hard eye of the husbandman
My harvests and my cattle. Her,
When even puts the birds astir
And day has set in the great woods,
We seek, among her garden roods,
With bells and cries in vain: the while
Lamps, plate, and the decanter smile
On the forgotten board. But she,
Deaf, blind, and prone on face and knee,
Forgets time, family and feast
And digs like a demented beast.
- ↑ Mrs. Stevenson.
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