THERE sits a bird on every tree
Sing heigh-ho!
There sits a bird on every tree,
And courts his love, as I do thee;
Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
There grows a flower on every bough,
Sing heigh-ho!
There grows a flower on every bough,
Its petals kiss—I’ll show you how:
Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
From sea to stream the salmon roam:
Sing heigh-ho!
From sea to stream the salmon roam;
Each finds a mate, and leads her home;
Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
The sun’s a bridegroom, earth a bride,
Sing heigh-ho!
They court from morn till eventide:
The earth shall pass, but love abide;
Sing heigh-ho, and heigh-ho!
Young maids must marry.
Charles Kingsley.

SNOWDROP

WHEN, full of warm and eager love,
I clasp you in my fond embrace,
You gently push me back and say,
“Take care, my dear, you’ll spoil my lace.”
You kiss me just as you would kiss
Some woman friend you chanced to see;
You call me “dearest.”—All love’s forms
Are yours, not its reality.
Oh, Annie! cry, and storm, and rave!
Do anything with passion in it!
Hate me an hour, and then turn round
And love me truly, just one minute.
William Wetmore Story.

THE PROTEST

I  COULD not bear to see those eyes
On all with wasteful largess shine,
And that delight of welcome rise
Like sunshine strained through amber wine,
But that a glow from deeper skies,
From conscious fountains more divine,
Is (is it?) mine.
Be beautiful to all mankind,
As Nature fashioned thee to be;
’Twould anger me did all not find
The sweet perfection that’s in thee;
Yet keep one charm of charms behind,—
Nay, thou ’rt so rich, keep two of three
For (is it?) me!
James Russell Lowell.

SCHERZO

WHEN the down is on the chin
And the gold-gleam in the hair,
When the birds their sweethearts win
And champagne is in the air
Love is here, and Love is there,
Love is welcome everywhere.
Summer’s cheek too soon turns thin,
Day grows briefer, sunshine rare;
Autumn from his cannikin
Blows the froth to chase Despair:
Love is met with frosty stare,
Cannot house ’neath branches bare.
When new life is in the leaf
And new red is in the rose,
Though Love’s Maytime be as brief
As a dragon-fly’s repose,
Never moments come like those,
Be they Heaven or Hell: who knows?
All too soon comes Winter’s grief,
Spendthrift Love’s false friends turn foes;
Softly comes Old Age, the thief,
Steals the rapture, leaves the throes:
Love his mantle round him throws,—
“Time to say good-bye; it snows.”
James Russell Lowell.

THE HANDSOMEST MAN IN THE ROOM

I’VE always been told that I’m pretty
(And really I think so myself),
I’m accomplished, good-tempered, and witty,
And papa has got plenty of pelf.
My teeth, eyes, and curls, I won’t mention,
My shape, nor my delicate bloom;
But I’m sure I deserve the attention
Of “the handsomest man in the room.”
Yes, I know I deserve the attention,
Of the “handsomest man in the room.”
When I met that sublimest of fellows,
The sight really made my heart jump;
Other men shrank to mere punchinellos,
As he towered like a pine in a clump.
So noble and classic each feature,
With a touching expression of gloom,
That I said to myself—“The dear creature!
He’s the handsomest man in the room!”
“Yes!” I said to myself,—“The dear creature!
He’s the handsomest man in the room!”
He asked me if I’d walk a measure,
(When he came it was nearly midnight)—
I said—“With a great deal of pleasure,”
For he danced like a perfect delight.
So in waltzing and polking we sported,
Till supper sent forth its perfume,
And I went down to table, escorted
By “the handsomest man in the room”—
Yes, I went down to table, escorted
By “the handsomest man in the room.”
I thought ’twas a nice situation,
So snugly together we sat,
And in hopes of a pleasant flirtation,
I tried to engage him in chat.
But, to talk of himself never backward,
He strove modest airs to assume,
For he told me, he felt very awkward
As “the handsomest man in the room”—
Really, really, one does feel so awkward,
As “the handsomest man in the room!”
Thought I—“This is really too stupid!
Your good looks are very well known,
But you ought to know, Grenadier Cupid,
That I’d much rather hear of my own.”
Yet should he reform in this one thing
(Of which there are hopes, I presume),
We still may contrive to make something
Of the handsomest man in the room,
Yes, we still may contrive to make something
Of the handsomest man in the room.
William Macquorn Rankine.

THE LAWYER’S INVOCATION TO SPRING

WHEREAS, on certain boughs and sprays
Now divers birds are heard to sing,
And sundry flowers their heads upraise,
Hail to the coming on of Spring!
The songs of those said birds arouse
The memory of our youthful hours,
As green as those said sprays and boughs,
As fresh and sweet as those said flowers.
The birds aforesaid—happy pairs—
Love, ’mid the aforesaid boughs, inshrines
In freehold nests; themselves their heirs,
Administrators, and assigns.
O busiest term of Cupid’s Court,
Where tender plaintiffs actions bring,—
Season of frolic and of sport,
Hail, as aforesaid, coming Spring!
Henry Howard Brownell.

A TERRIBLE INFANT

I  RECOLLECT a nurse call’d Ann
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up and kiss’d the pretty lass.
She did not make the least objection!
Thinks I, “Aha!
When I can talk I’ll tell Mamma”—
And that’s my earliest recollection.
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

LOULOU AND HER CAT

GOOD pastry is vended
In Cité Fadette;
Maison Pons can make splendid
Brioche and galette.
M’sieu Pons is so fat that
He’s laid on the shelf;
Madame had a Cat that
Was fat as herself.
Long hair, soft as satin,
A musical purr,
’Gainst the window she’d flatten
Her delicate fur.
I drove Lou to see what
Our neighbours were at,
In rapture, cried she, “What
An exquisite cat!
“What whiskers! She’s purring
All over. Regale
Our eyes, Puss, by stirring
Thy feathery tail!
“M’sieu Pons, will you sell her?”
“Ma femme est sortie,
Your offer I’ll tell her;
But will she?” says he.
Yet Pons was persuaded
To part with the prize:
(Our bargain was aided,
My Lou, by your eyes!)
From his légitime save him,—
My spouse I prefer,
For I warrant his gave him
Un mauvais quart d’heure.
I am giving a pleasant
Grimalkin to Lou,
—Ah, Puss, what a present
I’m giving to you!
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

PICCADILLY

PICCADILLY! Shops, palaces, bustle, and breeze,
The whirring of wheels, and the murmur of trees;
By night or by day, whether noisy or stilly,
Whatever my mood is, I love Piccadilly.
Wet nights, when the gas on the pavement is streaming,
And young Love is watching, and old Love is dreaming,
And Beauty is whirling to conquest, where shrilly
Cremona makes nimble thy toes, Piccadilly!
Bright days, when a stroll is my afternoon wont
And I meet all the people I do know, or don’t:
Here is jolly old Brown, and his fair daughter Lillie—
No wonder, young Pilgrim, you like Piccadilly!
See yonder pair riding, how fondly they saunter,
She smiles on her poet, whose heart’s in a canter!
Some envy her spouse, and some covet her filly,
He envies them both,—he’s an ass, Piccadilly!
Now were I such a bride, with a slave at my feet,
I would choose me a house in my favourite street;
Yes or no—I would carry my point, willy-nilly:
If “no,”—pick a quarrel; if “yes”—Piccadilly!
From Primrose balcony, long ages ago,
“Old Q.” sat at gaze,—who now passes below?
A frolicsome statesman, the Man of the Day
A laughing philosopher, gallant and gay;
Never darling of fortune more manfully trod,
Full of years, full of fame, and the world at his nod,
Can the thought reach his heart, and then leave it more chilly—
Old P. or old Q.,—“I must quit Piccadilly?”
Life is chequer’d; a patchwork of smiles and of frowns;
We value its ups, let us muse on its downs;
There’s a side that is bright, it will then turn us t’other,
One turn, if a good one, deserves yet another.
These downs are delightful, these ups are not hilly,—
Let us try one more turn ere we quit Piccadilly.
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

A WORD THAT MAKES US LINGER

(Written in the visitor’s book at Gopsall)

KIND hostess mine, who raised the latch
And welcomed me beneath your thatch,
Who makes me here forget the pain,
And all the pleasures of Cockaigne,
Now, pen in hand, and pierced with woe,
I write one word before I go—
A word that dies upon my lips
While thus you kiss your finger-tips.
When Black-eyed Sue was rowed to land
That word she cried, and waved her hand—
Her lily hand!
It seems absurd,
But I can’t write that dreadful word.
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

MY MISTRESS’S BOOTS

THEY nearly strike me dumb,
And I tremble when they come
Pit-a-pat:
This palpitation means
That these Boots are Geraldine’s—
Think of that!
Oh where did hunter win
So delectable a skin
For her feet?
You lucky little kid,
You perish’d, so you did,
For my sweet!
The faery stitching gleams
On the sides, and in the seams,
And it shows
That the Pixies were the wags
Who tipt these funny tags,
And these toes.
The simpletons who squeeze
Their extremities to please
Mandarins,
Would positively flinch
From venturing to pinch
Geraldine’s.
What soles to charm an elf!
Had Crusoe, sick of self,
Chanced to view
One printed near the tide,
Oh how hard he would have tried
For the two!
For Gerry’s debonair,
And innocent and fair
As a rose:
She’s an angel in a frock,
With a fascinating cock
To her nose.
Cinderella’s lefts and rights
To Geraldine’s were frights;
And, I trow,
The damsel, deftly shod,
Has dutifully trod
Until now.
Come, Gerry, since it suits
Such a pretty Puss (in Boots)
These to don,
Set this dainty hand awhile
On my shoulder, dear, and I’ll
Put them on.
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

A NICE CORRESPONDENT!

THE glow and the glory are plighted
To darkness, for evening is come;
The lamp in Glebe Cottage is lighted,
The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb.
I’m alone in my casement, for Pappy
Is summon’d to dinner at Kew:
I’m alone, dearest Fred, but I’m happy—
I’m thinking of you!
I wish you were here! Were I duller
Than dull, you’d be dearer than dear;
I’m drest in your favourite colour—
Dear Fred, how I wish you were here!
I am wearing my lazuli necklace,
The necklace you fasten’d askew!
Was there ever so rude and so reckless
A darling as you?
I want you to come and pass sentence
On two or three books with a plot;
Of course you know “Janet’s Repentance”?
I’m reading Sir Waverley Scott,
The story of Edgar and Lucy,
How thrilling, romantic, and true!
The master (his bride was a goosey!)
Reminds me of you.
They tell me Cockaigne has been crowning
A Poet whose garland endures;
It was you who first spouted me Browning,—
That stupid old Browning of yours!
His vogue and his verve are alarming,
I’m anxious to give him his due,
But, Fred, he’s not nearly so charming
A Poet as you!
I heard how you shot at the Beeches,
I saw how you rode Chanticleer,
I have read the report of your speeches,
And echoed the echoing cheer.
There’s a whisper of hearts you are breaking,
Dear Fred, I believe it, I do!
Small marvel that Fashion is making
Her idol of you!
Alas for the world, and its dearly
Bought triumph, its fugitive bliss;
Sometimes I half wish I was merely
A plain or a penniless miss;
But perhaps one is best with “a measure
Of pelf,” and I’m not sorry, too,
That I’m pretty, because ’tis a pleasure,
My darling, to you!
Your whim is for frolic and fashion,
Your taste is for letters and art;—
This rhyme is the commonplace passion
That glows in a fond woman’s heart:
Lay it by in a dainty deposit
For relics—we all have a few!
Love, some day they’ll print it, because it
Was written to you!
Frederick Locker-Lampson.

THERE’S A TIME TO BE JOLLY

THERE’S a time to be jolly, a time to repent,
A season for folly, a season for Lent,
The first as the worst we too often regard;
The rest as the best, but our judgment is hard.
There are snows in December and Roses in June,
There’s darkness at midnight and sunshine at noon;
But, were there no sorrow, no storm-cloud or rain,
Who’d care for the morrow with beauty again.
The world is a picture both gloomy and bright,
And grief is the shadow and pleasure the light,
And neither should smother the general tone:
For where were the other if either were gone?
The valley is lovely; the mountain is drear,
Its summit is hidden in mist all the year;
But gaze from the heaven, high over all weather,
And mountain and valley are lovely together.
I have learned to love Lucy, though faded she be;
If my next love be lovely, the better for me.
By the end of next summer, I’ll give you my oath,
It was best, after all, to have flirted with both.
Charles Godfrey Leland.

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER

I  REMEMBER, I remember,
The house where I was wed,
And the little room from which, that night,
My smiling bride was led;
She didn’t come a wink too soon,
Nor make too long a stay;
But now I often wish her folks
Had kept the girl away!
I remember, I remember,
Her dresses, red and white,
Her bonnets and her caps and cloaks,—
They cost an awful sight!
The “corner lot” on which I built,
And where my brother met
At first my wife, one washing-day,—
That man is single yet!
I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to court,
And thought that all of married life
Was just such pleasant sport:
My spirit flew in feathers then,
No care was on my brow;
I scarce could wait to shut the gate,—
I’m not so anxious now!
I remember, I remember,
My dear one’s smile and sigh;
I used to think her tender heart
Was close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
But now it soothes me not
To know I’m farther off from heaven
Than when she wasn’t got!
Phœbe Cary.

THE FLOWER OF LOVE LIES BLEEDING

I  MET a little maid one day,
All in the bright May weather;
She danced, and brushed the dew away
As lightly as a feather.
She had a ballad in her hand
That she had just been reading,
But was too young to understand:—
That ditty of a distant land,
“The flower of love lies bleeding.”
She tripped across the meadow grass,
To where a brook was flowing,
Across the brook like wind did pass,—
Wherever flowers were growing
Like some bewildered child she flew,
Whom fairies were misleading:
“Whose butterfly,” I said, “are you?
And what sweet thing do you pursue?”—
“The flower of love lies bleeding!”
“I’ve found the wild rose in the hedge,
I’ve found the tiger-lily,—
The blue flag by the water’s edge,—
The dancing daffodilly,—
King-cups and pansies,—every flower
Except the one I’m needing;—
Perhaps it grows in some dark bower,
And opens at a later hour,—
This flower of love lies bleeding.”
“I wouldn’t look for it,” I said,
“For you can do without it:
There’s no such flower.” She shook her head;
“But I have read about it!”
I talked to her of bee and bird,
But she was all unheeding:
Her tender heart was strangely stirred,
She harped on that unhappy word,—
“The flower of love lies bleeding!”
“My child,” I sighed, and dropped a tear,
“I would no longer mind it;
You’ll find it some day, never fear,
For all of us must find it!
I found it many a year ago,
With one of gentle breeding;
You and the little lad you know,—
I see why you are weeping so,—
Your flower of love lies bleeding!”
Richard Henry Stoddard.

THE GOLD ROOM
AN IDYL

THEY come from mansions far up-town,
And from their country villas,
And some, Charybdis’ gulf whirls down,
And some fall into Scylla’s.
Lo! here young Paris climbs the stairs
As if their slope were Ida’s,
And here his golden touch declares
The ass’s ears of Midas.
It seems a Bacchic, brawling rout
To every business-scorner,
But such, methinks, must be an “out,”
Or has not made a “corner.”
In me the rhythmic gush revives;
I feel a classic passion:
We, also, lead Arcadian lives,
Though in a Broad-Street fashion.
Old Battos, here, ’s a leading bull,
And Diomed a bear is,
And near them, shearing bankers’ wool,
Strides the Tiltonian Charis;
And Atys, there, has gone to smash,
His every bill protested,
While Cleon’s eyes with comfort flash,—
I have his funds invested!
Mehercle! ’tis the same thing yet
As in the days of Pindar:
The Isthmian race, the dust and sweat,
The prize—why, what’s to hinder?
And if I twang my lyre at times,
They did so then, I reckon;
That man’s the best at modern rhymes
Whom you can draw a check on!
Bayard Taylor.

COMFORT

WHO would care to pass his life away
Of the Lotos-land a dreamful denizen,—
Lotos-islands in a waveless bay,
Sung by Alfred Tennyson?
Who would care to be a dull new-comer
Far across the wild sea’s wide abysses,
Where, about the earth’s three thousandth summer,
Passed divine Ulysses?
Rather give me coffee, art, a book,
From my windows a delicious sea-view,
Southdown mutton, somebody to cook,—
“Music?”—I believe you.
Strawberry icebergs in the summer time,—
But of elm-wood many a massive splinter,
Good ghost stories, and a classic rhyme,
For the nights of winter.
Now and then a friend and some Sauterne,
Now and then a haunch of Highland venison,
And for Lotos-land I’ll never yearn,
Malgré Alfred Tennyson.
Mortimer Collins.

A SUMMER SONG

SUMMER is sweet, ay! summer is sweet,—
Minna mine with the brown, brown eyes:
Red are the roses under his feet,
Clear the blue of his windless skies.
Pleasant it is in a boat to glide
On a river whose ripples to ocean haste,
With indolent fingers fretting the tide,
And an indolent arm round a darling waist—
And to see as the Western purple dies,
Hesper mirrored in brown, brown eyes.
Summer is fleet, ah! summer is fleet,—
Minna mine with the brown, brown eyes:
Onward travel his flying feet,
And the mystical colours of autumn rise.
Clouds will gather round evening star—
Sorrow may silence our first gay rhyme,—
The river’s swift ripples flow tardier far
Than the golden minutes of love’s sweet time:
But to me, whom omnipotent love makes wise,
There’s endless summer in brown, brown eyes.
Mortimer Collins.

MY AUNT’S SPECTRE

THEY tell me (but I really can’t
Imagine such a rum thing),
It is the phantom of my Aunt,
Who ran away—or something.
It is the very worst of bores:
(My Aunt was most delightful).
It prowls about the corridors,
And utters noises frightful.
At midnight through the rooms It glides,
Behaving very coolly,
Our hearts all throb against our sides—
The lights are burning bluely.
The lady, in her living hours,
Was the most charming vixen
That ever this poor sex of ours
Delighted to play tricks on.
Yes, that’s her portrait on the wall,
In quaint old-fangled bodice:
Her eyes are blue—her waist is small—
A ghost! Pooh, pooh,—a goddess!
A fine patrician shape, to suit
My dear old father’s sister—
Lips softly curved, a dainty foot:
Happy the man that kissed her!
Light hair of crisp irregular curl
Over fair shoulders scattered—
Egad, she was a pretty girl,
Unless Sir Thomas flattered!
And who the deuce, in these bright days,
Could possibly expect her
To take to dissipated ways
And plague us as a spectre?
Mortimer Collins.

A CONCEIT

OH, touch that rose-bud! it will bloom—
My lady fair!
A passionate red in dim green gloom,
A joy, a splendor, a perfume
That sleeps in air.
You touched my heart; it gave a thrill
Just like a rose
That opens at a lady’s will;
Its bloom is always yours, until
You bid it close.
Mortimer Collins.

MARTIAL IN LONDON