University of Virginia Library


16

THE SERENADER.

SECOND VERSION.

Out at a window looked a lady sweet,
And smiled towards an admiring youth below,
Who answered, “Gracious Madam, I shall go
And buy a harp whose strings by finger fleet
Swept cunningly may move a melody meet
Towards that casement and its hand of snow,”
Came quickly wafted down a laughing “No,”
Silent of serenading was the street.
But—the forbidden song is here instead,
Filling two volumes with a swell of sound,
For what are all my poems choicely bound
But a flowery Serenade whose petals shed
Their perfume round about your sleeping head,
Filling the window, covering the ground?