 | The Collected Songs of Charles Mackay |  |
352
BLACKBERRIES.
I
Black as Beauty's tresses,Sweet as Love's caresses,
Darlings of the people, beloved of high and low,
Dear to age and childhood,
Gleaming in the wild wood,
Peeping to the sunshine in every green hedgerow,
Berries of the bramble,
How I love to ramble
Through the shady valleys, and pluck you as I go!
II
Your luxuriant treasure,Stintless, out of measure,
Fills me with such feeling of recklessness and joy;
With such sense of rapture,
At the wealth of capture,
Prodigal as sunbeams where the wavelets toy,
I laugh at Time and trial,
And on his sunny dial
Turn back the creeping shadows, and feel I'm yet a boy.
III
Come hither, little maiden,With wicker basket laden;
And thou, O peasant urchin, with cheeks like dawning day;
353
Free as the wind and weather,
And pluck the luscious blackberries that ripen by the way;
You of the world unweeting,
I from the world retreating,
To taste a simple pleasure, and prize it while I may!
| The Collected Songs of Charles Mackay | |