 | Eclogues and monodramas |  |
So Mary stood: he leaning from his steed
Forgot his thirst in gazing o'er the rim
Upon the giver, and, so ending, thanked:
And with some trivial sentence interchanged
Past on and homewards; only to return
With the gray light of the succeeding days,
And wait beside the freshet till she came.
Till it grew custom and they settled hours
Of frequent tryst; and love newborn resumed
The millionth time upon two wondering hearts
His ancient empire; trustful love as young
As when the first pale lovers moistened eyes,
And trusted vows were everlasting stuff
And passion's lease eternal.
Forgot his thirst in gazing o'er the rim
Upon the giver, and, so ending, thanked:
And with some trivial sentence interchanged
Past on and homewards; only to return
With the gray light of the succeeding days,
And wait beside the freshet till she came.
Till it grew custom and they settled hours
Of frequent tryst; and love newborn resumed
The millionth time upon two wondering hearts
His ancient empire; trustful love as young
As when the first pale lovers moistened eyes,
And trusted vows were everlasting stuff
And passion's lease eternal.
So the time
Wore: and the mother, in short-sighted zeal,
For Mary dared not tell her yet of James
From some vague awkwardness and half in fear,
Dinned in the daughter's ear perpetual praise
Of one rich miller in a neighbour vale.
Her very model of a son-in-law,
This miller with his solemn face inane,
Broad-cheeked, and well-to-do, and middle-aged,
Easily natured, patient to be led:
Slow in his speech, nor rash to overflow
In glancing topic or colloquial fence.
He, in a mooning fondness for the girl,
Would sit, on drowsy Sunday afternoons,
On the same parlour chair, in staid routine
Of an accredited courtship, much besunned
With bland maternal smiles and meaning looks.
But Mary sat unmoved with wearied face:
For duller seemed the good man than a day
That drips without a stint from dawn to dusk.
And so he came by clock-work and withdrew
The same to a minute, phrasing his farewell
Upon a constant formula: nor dreamt
In his thick hide that Mary wished him gone
Ere he had passed the door: and, week by week,
Heavily amorous, still he came and came,
And took his courtship as his Sunday beef,
Equably stolid, and with both content.
Wore: and the mother, in short-sighted zeal,
For Mary dared not tell her yet of James
83
Dinned in the daughter's ear perpetual praise
Of one rich miller in a neighbour vale.
Her very model of a son-in-law,
This miller with his solemn face inane,
Broad-cheeked, and well-to-do, and middle-aged,
Easily natured, patient to be led:
Slow in his speech, nor rash to overflow
In glancing topic or colloquial fence.
He, in a mooning fondness for the girl,
Would sit, on drowsy Sunday afternoons,
On the same parlour chair, in staid routine
Of an accredited courtship, much besunned
With bland maternal smiles and meaning looks.
But Mary sat unmoved with wearied face:
For duller seemed the good man than a day
That drips without a stint from dawn to dusk.
And so he came by clock-work and withdrew
The same to a minute, phrasing his farewell
Upon a constant formula: nor dreamt
84
Ere he had passed the door: and, week by week,
Heavily amorous, still he came and came,
And took his courtship as his Sunday beef,
Equably stolid, and with both content.
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