The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

O the House in the Square! dear House in the Square!
With the little grass-plots, and the mouldy green tubs
Where the hoops fell away from the pale-flowering shrubs;
But the widow was kind, and her daughters were fair,
And all the day long there was sunshine there,
In the House in the Square.

A poor scholar's widow who still had her share
Of life's vexing troubles, how kindly she took
To our thoughtful life busy with lecture and book!
And with motherly heart she would sweeten our care
O'er the mild cup of tea, and the homely fare
Of the House in the Square.

To her all the way of our life we laid bare
Its hopes and its fears, and she made them her own,
And soothed us, or cheered us, as one who had known
The outlets that open in depths of despair;
And we all came away with a light-somer air
From the House in the Square.

The widow was kind; but her daughters were rare,
Bright girls—our Muriel, Myra, and Loo:
Nimble their fingers, their wits nimble too,
And like sunbeams and singing of birds, unaware
Of the brightness they brought, they would trip up the stair
Of the House in the Square.

Never maidens more frank, never maidens more fair,
Never maidens were simpler or truer than they;
They could think as we thought, yet their hearts were as gay
As the feather-head fribbles that simper and stare,
When you speak as we spoke all the long evenings there
At the House in the Square.

There our Logic we aired, splitting many a hair;
And the quick-witted girls, skilled in mellow-toned Greek,
Reading just what we read, of their Plato would speak,

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Or they sang an old song, or they played a blithe air,
When discussion grew hot about any affair
In the House in the Square.

Their father, a scholar, would have them beware
How they squandered their lives on the shallow and sweet;
They should know what men knew, to be helps to them meet;
And the learning he loved he was eager to share
With the daughters he loved, until death found him there
At the House in the Square.

We were all of us poor; but we did not much care,
For we sought the best riches of wisdom and truth
With the courage of faith, and the ardour of youth;
And with Homer and Shakespeare for friends, we could bear
The dust of the carriage that passed with a stare
At the House in the Square.

How it haunts me, that home with its scholarly air!
Those brave, gentle souls 'mid the city's turmoil,
All so earnest in thought, and so patient in toil,
And so true to the right, and so patient to bear!
Ah! would I were now as I wont to be there
At the House in the Square!

MURIEL

Whoever looked at Muriel, said:
That girl has soul, her heart is high,
And she has great thoughts in her head,
And scorn of meanness in her eye;
How sweetly gracious she can smile!
Yet she looks haughty all the while,
And beams on you in the goddess style.

Whoever spoke to Muriel, thought:
Her looks are nothing to her speech;
That girl a noble strain has got,
And soars beyond the common reach;
Yet with her high and daring mood,
And with her faith in human good,
Will she be ever understood?

Was it Mary Stuart, or Joan of Arc,
Or Charlotte Corday that lived in her?
Did she bewitch with glances dark,
Or make your noblest pulses stir?
Shall he who seeks her love to win,
Ere he gather its harvest in,
Be great in spirit, or great in sin?

A fair enigma! Low-browed, small,
Yet walking in her queenly grace,
You would have vowed her stately, tall,
Like Dian coming from the chase,
With bow unstrung, and flushed with pride,
The quivered arrows by her side,
Every tip with crimson dyed.

Was she a flirt whose roving eyes
Entangled hearts with cunning wiles?
Or was she maiden without disguise,
Bright with sunny and artless smiles?
What was the subtle charm that wrought,
So that, hopeful or hoping nought,
Still to win her love men sought?

And when she spoke in homeliest strain,
What was the spell that held them fast?
And when she smote their hearts with pain,
What was the glamour o'er them cast,
That she had but to smile anew,
And close to her again they drew
Holding her all that is good and true?

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Still in extremes of good or ill,
She seemed to play a fateful part;
Some felt it bliss to do her will,
Some found in it an aching heart;
But let them joy or let them ache,
The task she set them they would make
Their chiefest business for her sake.

She did not wonder at her lot,
But, all unconscious, held her way,
Nor cared for incense that she got,
Nor heeded what the world might say:
Unwittingly her spells she wove,
And proudly lived apart, above
All the surmise of hate or love.

A beautiful enigma she,
Our Muriel, with the dark bright eyes!
And still her beauty seemed to be
Flashed on you with a fresh surprise:
And when they left her, men would look
As if inspired by some great Book
That did their meaner soul rebuke.

LOO

Loo, Loo! rather handsome than pretty,
Deft at a pudding, or stocking, or ditty,
Quick at a riddle, and keen in retort;
Knitting her brows now o'er polyglot learning,
Then toiling hard at her sewing and darning,
Brimful of life, or at work or in sport.

Loo, Loo! where on earth can she be?
A Frau they tell me in Germany,
Seeing to Saur Kraut, plump and fair:
Now in the store-room, now at the dresser,
Kitchen-maid, waiting-maid to her Professor,
Just as she was at the House in the Square.

Loo, Loo! she will toil at his Greek,
Help his prelections, and fittingly speak
To scholars of Homer, to Burschen of beer,
Will search out in Plato the reference-passage,
And see to the Calf's-flesh, the cabbage and sausage,
And the pipe and the mug and the old household gear.

Loo, Loo! she can sew, she can spin,
Can boil, stew and fry, see to flagon and binn,
Read the “Birds” and the “Clouds” with fine sense of the fun,
Grasp Aeschylus' thought of the Fates, and the Human
That softly gleams out in Euripides' Woman,
Then seek the Beer-garden, and knit in the sun.

Loo, Loo! what will she not do
For a husband she loves, ever faithful and true?
Is he off to the Sanskrit? she'll study the Veds:
And Babylon's stone-books and arrow-head letters,
Oh, she'll find the trick of them as soon as her betters,
And then turn to making shirt-collars or beds.

Loo, Loo! it was always her way;
She said men were failures, and had had their day,
But women were versatile, nimble as air,
Fit for the humblest tasks, fit for the highest,
Pouring life-blood into themes that were driest.—
Happy Professor, put under her care!

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MYRA

She was the fairest of all the three;
Yet not at first she caught the eye,
For in her maiden meekness she
Wooed shadow like the primrose shy,
And seventeen summers hardly brought
Her lissom form to perfect grace,
And the great purple eyes still shot
Too large a light on the oval face;
Yet she was fairest of all the three,
E'en were she nothing at all to me.

She was the wisest of them, though
Not so nimble and deft of wit;
But her heart thought, and made her know
What for the loving heart was fit;
And when you touched on higher chords,
With eager eyes and parted lips,
You caught her listening to your words,
Quick with mind to the finger-tips:
For she was wisest of all the three,
Had she been nothing at all to me.

She was the sweetest of them—sweet
As summer air from clover field;
And had a charity complete,
A touch, too, and a word that healed,
And therewith, oh so blithe a heart!
That she would laugh as birds must sing,
But could not play a bitter part
That she might say a clever thing.
Wisest, sweetest, fairest she,
E'en were she nothing at all to me.

And she was all the world to me;
I loved her though she knew it not,
And she loved, though I did not see
She gave me back the love I sought;
We loved, and yet we never wist
Till many years had come and gone;
We never spoke it, never kissed,
But loved in silence and alone.
Fairest, dearest of all the three,
Oh, she was all the world to me.

LOVE

Oh, what is this that in my heart is singing,
Like sweet bird, caged there, carolling all day?
Oh, what is this such gladness to me bringing
That life is bliss, and work is merry play,
And round my steps, lo! sunny flowers are springing
As I go singing, singing on my way?
O Love, glad Love!

Ah! what is this that in my heart is sighing,
Like captive vainly moaning to be free?
Ah! what is this so heavy in me lying?
No rest there is, nor any work for me,
And leaf and flower are drooping now and dying
As I go sighing, sighing wearily?
O Love, sad Love!

What thing is this my foolish heart is dreaming,
That I should love, and long for yon bright star?
I sigh or sing, but she, unmoved, is gleaming
As in high glory where the angels are—
I but a glow-worm on the earth dull-beaming,
While she is gleaming, gleaming there afar.
O Love, vain Love!

SPEECHLESS

O thou fire-edged cloudlet
Brimming o'er with light!
Like my heart thou hangest
'Twixt the day and night.

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Silently thou hangest,
Seemingly at rest,
Yet there is strange tumult
Boiling in thy breast.

O my heart o'er-brimming
With burning thought of her,
Could'st thou only speak it,
How her heart must stir!

But my love is surging,
Like the hurrying wave
Breaking on the silence
Of the dripping cave;

Breaking on the silence
Of the tangled shelf,
And falling back in foam-bells
Still upon itself.