Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme, One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And, as when all the summer-trees are seen
So bright and green,
The holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly-tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.
COME back, come back together,
All ye fancies of the past,
Ye days of April weather,
Ye shadows that are cast
By the haunted hours before!
Come back, come back, my childhood;
Thou art summon'd by a spell
From the green leaves of the wild wood,
From beside the charmed well!
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.
The fields were cover'd over
With colours as she went;
Daisy, buttercup, and clover,
Below her footsteps bent.
Summer shed its shining store,
She was happy as she press'd them
Beneath her little feet;
She pluck'd them and caress'd them;
They were so very sweet,
They had never seem'd so sweet before,
To Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.
How the heart of childhood dances
Upon a sunny day!
It has its own romances,
And a wide, wide world have they!
A world where phantasie is king,
Made all of eager dreaming,
When once grown up and tall;
Now is the time for scheming,
Then we shall do them all!
Do such pleasant fancies spring
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?
She seems like an ideal love,
The poetry of childhood shown,
And yet loved with a real love,
As if she were our own;
A younger sister for the heart;
Like the woodland pheasant,
Her hair is brown and bright;
And her smile is pleasant,
With its rosy light.
Never can the memory part
With Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.
Did the painter, dreaming
In a morning hour,
Catch the fairy seeming
Of this fairy flower?
Winning it with eager eyes,
From the old enchanted stories,
Lingering with a long delight,
On the unforgotten glories
Of the infant sight?
Giving us a sweet surprise
In Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?
Too long in the meadow staying,
Where the cowslip bends,
With the buttercups delaying
As with early friends,
Did the little maiden stay.
Sorrowful the tale for us,
We, too, loiter mid life's flowers,
A little while so glorious,
So soon lost in darker hours.
All love lingering on their way, Like Red Riding Hood, the darling, The flower of fairy lore.
THE FIRST GRAVE IN THE NEW CHURCHYARD AT BROMPTON.
A SINGLE grave! the only one
In this unbroken ground,
Where yet the garden-leaf and flower
Are lingering around.
A single grave! my heart has felt
How utterly alone
In crowded halls, were breathed for me
Not one familiar tone;
The shade where forest-trees shut out
All but the distant sky;
I've felt the loneliness of night
When the dark winds pass'd by:
My pulse has quicken'd with its awe,
My lip has gasp'd for breath;
But what were they to such as this,
The solitude of death!
A single grave! we half forget
How sunder human ties,
When round the silent place of rest
A gather'd kindred lies.
We stand beneath the haunted yew,
And watch each quiet tomb;
And in the ancient churchyard feel
Solemnity, not gloom :
The place is purified with hope,
The hope that is of prayer;
And human love, and heavenward thought,
And pious faith are there.
The wild flowers spring amid the grass,
And many a stone appears,
Carved by affection's memory,
Wet with affection's tears.
The golden chord which binds us all
Is loosed, not rent in twain;
And love, and hope, and fear unite
To bring the past again.
But THIS grave is so desolate,
With no remembering stone;
No fellow-graves for sympathy-
'Tis utterly alone.
I do not know who sleeps beneath,
His history or name;
Whether if, lonely in his life,
He is in death the same;
Whether he died unloved, unmourn'd,
The last leaf on the bough;
Or if some desolated hearth
Is weeping for him now.
Perhaps this is too fanciful:
Though single be his sod,
Yet not the less it has around
The presence of his God.
It may be weakness of the heart,
But yet its kindliest, best:
Better if in our selfish world
It could be less repress'd.
Those gentler charities which draw
Man closer with his kind;
Those sweet humanities which make
The music which they find.
How many a bitter word 'twould hush,
How many a pang 'twould save,
If life more precious held those ties
Which sanctify the grave!
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