Part 193

Blue sky, green fields, and lazy yellow sun! Why should I hunger for the burning South, Where beauty needs no travail to be won, Now I may kiss her pure impassioned mouth?

Winds rippling with the rich delight of spring! Why should I yearn for myriad-colored skies, Lit by auroral suns, when I may sing The flame and rapture of her starry eyes?

Oh, song of birds, and flowers fair to see! Why should I thirst for far-off Eden-isles, When I may hear her discourse melody, And bask, a dreamer, in her dreamy smiles?

Joel Elias Spingarn [1875-

ADVICE TO A LOVER

Oh, if you love her, Show her the best of you; So will you move her To bear with the rest of you. Coldness and jealousy Cannot but seem to her Signs that a tempest lurks Where was sunbeam to her. Patience, and tenderness Still will awake in her Hopes of new sunshine, Though the storm break for her; Love, she will know, for her, Like the blue firmament, Under the tempest lies Gentle and permanent. Nor will she ever Gentleness find the less When the storm overblown Leaveth clear kindliness. Deal with her tenderly, Skylike above her, Smile on her waywardness, Oh, if you love her!

S. Charles Jellicoe [18 -

"YES"

They stood above the world, In a world apart; And she dropped her happy eyes, And stilled the throbbing pulses Of her happy heart. And the moonlight fell above her, Her secret to discover; And the moonbeams kissed her hair, As though no human lovers Had laid his kisses there.

"Look up, brown eyes," he said, "And answer mine; Lift up those silken fringes That hide a happy light Almost divine." The jealous moonlight drifted To the finger half-uplifted, Where shone the opal ring - Where the colors danced and shifted On the pretty, changeful thing.

Just the old, old story Of light and shade, Love like the opal tender, Like it may be to vary - May be to fade. Just the old tender story, Just a glimpse of morning glory In an earthly Paradise, With shadowy reflections In a pair of sweet brown eyes.

Brown eyes a man might well Be proud to win! Open to hold his image, Shut under silken lashes, Only to shut him in. O glad eyes, look together, For life's dark, stormy weather Grows to a fairer thing When young eyes look upon it Through a slender wedding ring.

Richard Doddridge Blackmore [1825-1900]

LOVE

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I Live o'er again that happy hour, When midway on the mount I lay, Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, Had blended with the lights of eve; And she was there, my hope, my joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the armed man, The statue of the armed Knight; She stood and listened to my lay, Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own, My hope! my joy! my Genevieve! She loves me best whene'er I sing The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air; I sang an old and moving story - An old rude song, that suited well That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace; For well she knew I could not choose But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore Upon his shield a burning brand; And that for ten long years he wooed The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah! The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which I sang another's love, Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush, With downcast eyes, and modest grace; And she forgave me, that I gazed Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain-woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade -

There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a Fiend, This miserable Knight!

And that, unknowing what he did, He leaped amid a murderous band, And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land; -