Plays and poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Stop, stop! and look through the dusty pane.—
She 's gone!—Nay, hist! again I have caught her:
There is the source of my sighs of pain,
There is my idol, the Grocer's Daughter!

“A child! no woman!” A bud, no flower:
But think, when a year or more has brought her
Its ripening roundness, how proud a dower
Of charms will bloom in the Grocer's Daughter!

I have a love for the flower that blows,
One for the bud that needs sun and water;
The first because it is now a rose,
The other will be,—like the Grocer's Daughter.

She stood in the door, as I passed to-day,
And mine and a thousand glances sought her;
Like a star from heaven with equal ray,
On all alike, shone the Grocer's Daughter.

366

Mark how the sweetest on earth can smile,
As yon patient drudge, yon coarse-browed porter,
Eases his burdened back, the while
Keeping his eyes on the Grocer's Daughter.

Now, look ye! I who have much to lose—
Rank, wealth, and friends—like the load he brought her,
Would toss them under her little shoes,
To win that smile from the Grocer's Daughter.

367

II.
A MYSTERY.

Just as the twilight shades turn darker,
There is a maiden passes me;
Many and many a time I mark her,
Wondering who that maid can be.

Sometimes she bears her music, fastened
Scroll-like around with silken twine;
And once—although she blushed and hastened,
I knew it—she bore a book of mine.

In cold or heat, I never passed her,
Beneath serene or threatening skies,
That she upon me did not cast her
Strong, full, and steady hazel eyes.

Eyes of such wondrous inner meaning,
So filled with light, so deep, so true,
As if her thoughts disclaimed all screening,
And clustered in them, looking through.

Thus, day by day, we meet; no greeting,
No sign she makes, no word she says;
Unless our eyes salute at meeting,
And she says somewhat by her gaze.

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Says what? At first her looks were often
As cheering as the sun above;
Next they began to dim and soften,
Like glances from a brooding dove.

Then wonder, then reproach, concealing
A coming anger, I could see:
I passed, but felt her eyes were stealing
Around, and following after me.

Before me once, with firm possession,
She almost paused, and hung upon
The very verge of some confession;
But maiden coyness led her on.

Sometimes I think the maid indulges
An idle fancy by the way;
Sometimes I think her look divulges
A deeper sign—a mind astray.

This eve she met me, wild with laughter,
More sad than weeping would have been—
A pang before, a sorrow after;
Tell me, what can the maiden mean?

369

III.
THE TWO BIRDS.

Two birds hang from two facing windows:
One on a lady's marble wall;
The other, a seamstress' sole companion,
Rests on her lattice dark and small.

The one, embowered by rare exotics,
Swings in a curious golden cage;
The other, beside a lone geranium,
Peeps between wires of rusty age.

The one consumes a dainty seedling,
That, leagues on leagues, in vessels comes;
The other pecks at the scanty leavings
Strained from his mistress' painful crumbs.

The lady's bird has careful lackeys,
To place him in the cheerful sun;
Upon her bird the seamstress glances,
Between each stitch, till work is done.

Doubtless the marble wall shines gayly,
And sometimes to the window roam
Guests in their stately silken garments;
But yon small blind looks more like home.

370

Doubtless the tropic flowers are dazzling,
The golden cage is rare to see;
But sweeter smells the low geranium,
The mean cage has more liberty.

'T is well to feed upon the fruitage
Brought from a distant southern grove;
But better is a homely offering,
Divided by the hand of love.

The purchased service of a menial
May, to the letter, fill its part;
But there 's an overflowing kindness
Springs from the service of a heart.

Hark! yonder bird begins to warble:
Well done, my lady's pretty pet!
Thy song is somewhat faint and straitened,
Yet sweeter tones I 've seldom met.

And now the seamstress' bird.—O, listen!
Hear with what power his daring song
Sweeps through its musical divisions,
With skill assured, with rapture strong!

Hear how he trills; with what abundance
He flings his varied stores away;
Bursting through wood and woven iron
With the wild freedom of his lay!

Cease, little prisoner to the lady,
Cease, till the rising of the moon;
Thy feeble song is all unsuited
To the full midday glare of June.

371

Cease, for thy rival's throat is throbbing
With the fierce splendor of the hour;
His is the art that grasps a passion,
To cast it back with ten-fold power.

Cease, until yonder feathered poet
Through all his wondrous song has run,
And made the heart of wide creation
Leap in the glory of the sun.

372

IV.
FLOWERS AT THE WINDOW.

Flowers at the window! tropic blossoms blazing in our wintry air,
On the dark, cold evening looking with a fervid summer glare:
Just a bit of southern landscape prisoned in a northern pane,
Just a hint of how the cactus bristles o'er its native plain;
How the fuchsia hangs its scarlet buds amid the orange bowers,
And the dust of all the valleys rises up at once in flowers.

Yonder room is sick with odors, painful odors, too intense
For the scentless air that nurtured the fresh longings of my sense.
I should swoon among those flowers, their gaudy colors vex my eye,
And their hot oppressive breath upon my whirling brain would lie
Like the poisoned fumes, engendered by the eastern sorcerer's fire,
That rouse the sense to madness, and the heart to horrible desire.

373

Stay a moment,—through the flaunting stranger flowers, I mark a rose—
One pale native of our forests, standing there in mild repose;
Hanging down its timid head, amid its haughty sisters meek,
From them shrinking back, half-opened, with a blush upon its cheek.
Wait I for the rose to blow, or wait I for the maid who stood
In among the flowers, this morning, blooming into womanhood?