839 "Grieve Not, Ladies" In other eyes, in other lands, In deep fair pools new beauty lingers; But like spent water in your hands It runs from your reluctant fingers. You shall not keep the singing lark That owes to earlier skies its duty. Weep not to hear along the dark The sound of your departing beauty. The fine and anguished ear of night Oh, wait until the morning light! It may not seem so gone to-morrow. But honey-pale and rosy-red! Brief lights that make a little shining! Beautiful looks about us shed They leave us to the old repining. Think not the watchful, dim despair Has come to you the first, sweet-hearted! For oh, the gold in Helen's hair! And how she cried when that departed! Perhaps that one that took the most, The swiftest borrower, wildest spender, May count, as we would not, the costAnd grow more true to us and tender. Happy are we if in his eyes We see no shadow of forgetting. Nay-if our star sinks in those skies We shall not wholly see its setting. Then let us laugh as do the brooks, That such immortal youth is ours, If memory keeps for them our looks As fresh as are the springtime flowers. So grieve not, Ladies, if at night You wake to feel the cold December; And in your loved one's arms, remember. THE LOVER'S CHOICE A MAID unto her lover sternly said: "Forego the Indian weed before we wed; "For smoke take flame; I'll be that flame's bright fanner; To have your Anna, give up your Havana." The wretch, when thus she brought him to the scratch, Lit the cigar, and threw away the match. Unknown THE BETROTHED "You must choose between me and your cigar OPEN the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out. We quarreled about Havanas-we fought o'er a good cheroot And I know she is exacting, and she says I am a brute. Open the old cigar-box-let me consider a space, In the soft blue veil of the vapor, musing on Maggie's face. Maggie is pretty to look at-Maggie's a loving lass, But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass. There's peace in a Laranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay, But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away— Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown— But I never could throw away Maggie for fear o' the talk o' the town! The Betrothed Maggie, my wife at fifty-gray and dour and old- 841 And the light of Days that have Been, the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar- The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket With never a new one to light, though it's charred and black to the socket. Open the old cigar-box-let me consider awhile; Which is the better portion-bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string? Counselors cunning and silent-comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride. Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close. This will the fifty give me, asking naught in return, This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead. The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear that my harem is empty, will send me my brides again. I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall. I will scent 'em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides. For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen. And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been Priest of Partagas a matter of seven year; And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light Of stumps that I burned to Friendship, and Pleasure, and Work, and Fight. And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o'-the-Wisp of Love. Will it see me safe through my journey, or leave me bogged in the mire? Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire? Open the old cigar-box-let me consider anew Old friends, and who is Maggie, that I should abandon you? A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; Light me another Cuba-I hold to my first-sworn vows, LOVE'S SADNESS "THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES" THE night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done. Francis William Bourdillon [1852 "I SAW MY LADY WEEP" I SAW my Lady weep, And Sorrow proud to be advanced so In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. Her face was full of Woe, But such a Woe (believe me) as wins more hearts Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts. Sorrow was there made fair, And Passion, wise; Tears, a delightful thing; And all things with so sweet a sadness move O fairer than aught else The world can show, leave off in time to grieve! Tears kill the heart, believe. O strive not to be excellent in Woe, Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow. Unknown |