A lover's diary :: :: University of Virginia Library

When I remember the time we met,
I pause for a little, and give God praise,
That he, of his grace, in my life has set
That gladdest, goldenest day of my days.

Breaking out of her homespun gown,
Just like a wild-flower out of its bur;
Legs bare to the knees, and the shoulders down
To the waist, I marvelled and mused at her.

Her hands had been kissed and kissed by the sun
Brown as berries: she held her hair
Away from her dove-like eyes with one,
And stared at me, straight as eyes could stare

One moment,—then, being well content,
She dropt the tresses, that over the white,
Clear brow and sweet eyes came and went
Like shadows blowing across the light.

“A picture, such as the painter loves,”
I said, and passed, but she would not stay;
Those sweet eyes staring, round as a dove's,
Held me and haunted me all the day.

One foot on the other, bare and brown,—
The shining fall of her dead-leaf hair,—
Legs and shoulders out of her gown,—
She held me and haunted me, everywhere.

MONA, EIGHT YEARS OLD.

Darling MONA! well do I know
The wild March day she was eight years old,
For, seeing the prints of her feet in the snow,
I sat by our broad, bright fire, a-cold.

She grew in the shade of our house so grand,
White as a lily, and just as meek,
Till I put a rose in her little hand,
And the red ran out of it into her cheek.

The vines from their arbors I used to pull,
While yet their clusters unripe they bore,
Whenever they hid from my oriel
The bright geraniums round her door.

When over the poet's book I leant,
She was the angel of all the rhymes,
And ere she had smiled me sweet consent,
I kissed her in spirit a thousand times.

MONA, AT SCHOOL.

Like down of thistles the moments fled,
So soft they were, and light,
When we hid from the plashing rain
Under the hedge by the side of the lane,
Coming from school at night.

Ah, never a rose bloomed half so red,
And never will again,
As that I broke from the flowery hedge
Hiding under its briery edge
Out of the plashing rain!

I cannot think of a word she said,
As memory backward goes,

But ah! she never had looked so fair
As when she put my flower in her hair,
And I called her my double rose.

Life never held an hour so dread,
But I could make it light
With thought of the hedge-row, and the lane,
Where we hid from the plashing rain
Coming from school at night!

MONA, TEN YEARS OLD.

My darling, dove-eyed Mona,
What a merry tune she sings,
And her feet they fly along the grass
Like little milk-white wings!

In her life and in the season
'T is the golden edge o' th' May,
And her heart is like a flower that lies
In the sunshine all the day.

The cows that feed in the meadow,
They know her song like a call,
And lift their heads from the clover,
And follow her, one and all,—

Along the daisied hillsides,
And though the valleys green,
As loyal to the little maid
As subjects to their queen.

Seeing her, you would say the year
Had stolen the tender streaks
From all the wildings of the woods,
And put them in her cheeks.

Mona, my dove-eyed Mona,—
She is fair and she is gay,
And I would that for her beauty's sake
It might be always May.

MONA, FOURTEEN.

Beauteous little Mona,
Mona gay and glad,
Wearing on her shoulders
All the wealth she had,—
One white lamb, the tamest
Of all the meadows-flock,
Cheated by the clover-buds
Spangled in her frock;
Lying at her tiny feet
In the peach-tree shade,—
What a charming picture
Little Mona made!
Blossoms blowing round her,
Rivalling the hues

Of the silken ribbons
Lacing up her shoes.
Scarce the dew outsparkled
The brooch upon her breast;
'T was her birthday holiday,
And she wore her best.
Stir of every leaflet
Bashful blushes woke:
On the grass beside her
Like a yellow cloak
Lay the pleasant sunshine,—
On the bough above
Sat the robin red-breast
Calling to his love.

Saucy little Mona,
Lifting up her eyes
When I stood beside her,
With such a cold surprise!

Cruel little Mona!—
Very well she knew
That just to have the buckle
Upon her belt so blue,
That just to have the ribbon,
That laced her tiny shoes,
Or the brooch upon her bosom
That sparkled like the dews,
The half of my green acres
I would gladly sell away,
Nor even think of counting
The price I had to pay.
And yet she seemed to see me
With a common, cold surprise,—
How could you, little Mona,
Be so cruel with your eyes!

MONA, SLEEPING.

Ah, never had maiden
Such maidenly grace!
Her dream like a veil
Lieth over her face,
And the cheek next the pillow
Is printed with lace.

I dare not look on her!
But soft as I may,
I will steal from her bedside
Her slippers away,
And line them with wool
By the time it is day.

I hate the bold moonlight
That treads (as it dares)
The leaves at her window
As if they were stairs,
And plays with her dear
Little hand, unawares.

For her sake, and not for
Myself, I am proud:
If I live when her bright head
To death shall be bowed,
Of the white leaves of lilies
I 'll make her a shroud.

O Mona! sweet Mona!
If I by God's grace
Had a crown, I would give it
Just now, to efface
With kisses on kisses
The print of the lace.

MONA, SPINNING.

The woods are black behind and before,
The sunshine lieth asleep on the floor,
And the rose is just beginning
From the bush at the window all red to start,
And I say as I look on it, That is my heart!
For out on the grass by the open door
My little love sits spinning.

All in the shade where the sloe-berries grow
Lieth a water sluggish and low,
And the lily is just beginning
To open her white leaves hour by hour;—
I am the sullen pond, she is the flower,
And my thoughts fall alway, pure as snow,
Where my little love sits spinning.

The woods are black as black can be,
But through them shimmer spots o' the sea,
And the tide is just beginning.
There lieth a shell on the sand apart,
And a wave is kissing her way to its heart,
And the shell is I, and the wave is she
That sits at the door-side spinning.

MONA, KNITTING.

Knitting at her mother's door,
Underneath a sycamore,
That did long, white arms extend
Round about her, like a friend,
Saw I maiden Mona next.
She was now become the text
Of my dreams, my thoughts, my life,—
Would she, could she be my wife?

Rows of pinks on either side,
With their red mouths open wide,
And the quail, with tawny breast
Swelling out above her nest,
And the lily's speckled head
Shining o'er the spearmint bed;

All were fair, but more than fair
Maiden Mona, knitting there.

Round her eyes the hair fell down,—
Sunshine on a leafy brown,—
And her simple rustic dress
Witched my wordly eyes, I guess,
For her apron blue did lie
Like a little patch o' the sky
In her lap, beside the door
Underneath the sycamore.

Something sacred did divide her
From me, when I stood beside her:
I was born to house and land,—
She had but her heart and hand,
Yet she seemed so high above
The aspiring of my love,
That I stood in bashful shame,
Trembling just to speak her name.

MONA, MILKING.

I found my Mona milking
In the blithesome summer morn,
When the dew was on the clover,
And the tassel on the corn,
Sweeter than any red rose
In her royal, reigning hours;
The leaf-brown hair about her eyes,
And her feet among the flowers!

O day of days! thy memory
Will never fade, nor pass;
Patches of lowly violets
Were clouding all the grass,—

The jealous brook lay fretting
Between his banks of moss,
And shrugged his dimpled shoulders
As I lightly leapt across.

Adown her cheek the blushes
Ran rippling like a veil
Into the bosom, warm and white
As the froth within her pail,
As I watched her at her milking
In the blithesome summer morn,
When the dew was on the clover,
And the tassel on the corn.

KRUMLEY.

On the banks of Krumley,
Lighting up their shades,
Lives my beauteous Mona,
The fairest maid of maids.

O blushing flowers of Krumley!
'T is she that makes you sweet,
And I'm sighing by the silver waves
That murmur at her feet,—
I am sighing, dying by the waves
That murmur at her feet.

Ye woody banks of Krumley,
I'm jealous of your boughs,
For they murmur love to Mona
When she 's calling home her cows!

I hate ye, woods of Krumley!
For your dewy, drooping boughs
Caress and kiss my Mona
As she 's calling home her cows.

I tell ye, banks of Krumley,
It is not your sunny days
That set your grassy reaches
With blossoms all ablaze!
O dim and dewy dingles,
It is not your birds at all
That make the air one warble
From rainy spring till fall!

O bold, bold winds of Krumley,
Do ye mean my heart to break,
That ye toss her hair so lightly,
And so lightly kiss her cheek?
O bold, bold winds of Krumley,
Do ye mean my heart to break?

MONA, FIFTEEN.

Over the hedge I leaned one day
To see my darling as she lay
On the May grass,—it was not fair,
I know, in me to see her there.

Her soft locks down her graceful head
Drawn all one way, not wide dispread,
Were by her white hand gathered in
A shining coil beneath her chin.

The dress she wore was simply wrought
To the expression of her thought:
I never saw where it begun,
Or ended,—she and it were one.

The smile could only just get through
The mouth which she together drew,
That tender secret to repress
Which tells itself by silentness.

Near her two lilies, flamy light,
Bickering upon their ground of white,
O'ershadowed by her beauty, stood
Like the lost babies in the wood.

The ruby in her cheek did gleam
Like cherries in a pot of cream;
But wherefore separate graces trace
Where all was one excelling grace?

She did not raise her eyes above
The hedge, to chide my look of love,
Such fancies did about her close,
Like sunbeams feeding on a rose.

My passion to sad verse I set,
(I had not got my beard as yet,)
And she my worship did not wrong,—
The hedge was not between us long.

MONA, PERFECT.

Her language is so sweet and fit
You never have enough of it.
If she smiles, the house is bright
Without any candle-light.

Whether that her hair is rolled
Round an ivory comb, or gold,
Pinned or no, I cannot tell,
In itself it shines so well.

Whether she doth wear her coat
Loose, or buttoned to the throat,
Hems or ruffles, plain or gay,
Seems to me the sweetest way.

She 's so pitiful to all,
Sighs, as if by chance, do fall,
Daily, in her childlike prayers,
Getting heavenward unawares.

Every little word she speaks
Sends the color to her cheeks,
Rippling high and rippling low
Over bosom, over brow;

So, if stripped of dress and veil,
Like Godiva in the tale,
Modesty with blushes sweet
Would clothe her all from head to feet.

By her innocence she awes
Evil from her; through love's laws,
That so bind us like a cord,
Each to all, she seeks the Lord.

University of Virginia Library

1. PART I. DREAM-LAND.

MONA, SEVEN YEARS OLD.