Year: 1871

By ALICE CARY.
All in the May times merriest weather


Rode two travellers, bride and groom:
Breat and breast went their mules together
FetlOck deep through the daisy bloom.
Roses peeped at them out of the hedges,


White flowers leaned to them down from tn


thorn,


And up from the burrows with sunlit edges
Crowded the children that sowed in the corn.
Cheek Ger cheek and with red so tender


Rippling bright through the gipsy brown,
Just to see how a lady's splendOr


Shone the heads of the daff0dils down.
All, but the wonder grows and fingers.
An, but tn cir fields look low and lOrn,
Just to think how her jeweled fingers


Shamed the seeds of their yellow corn
Oh. it was sweet, so sweet, to be idle


Each little sower with fate fell wroth;
Oh, but to ride with a spangled bridle!


Oh, for a saddle with scarlet cloth !
Waving cOrn-each stock in tassel;


Home with its thatch and its turf-lit room
What was this by the side of a castle ?


What was that to a tossing plume?
Winds through the vioets' misty covering
Now kissed the white ones and now the blue.
Sang the redbreast over them lowering


All as the world were but just made new.
And on and on through the golden weather.
Fear at the faintest and hope at the BEST
Went the true lovers riding together.


Out of the East-land and into the West





Bride maids all with their favOrs dressed.
Back and backward the daisies sliding,
Dove-throat, black-foot, breast and breast.
Yet hath the bride-maid JOY of her pining,
And grief sits light on the mothers brow
Under her cloud is silver lining


The lowly child is a lady now.
But for the sewers, with eyes held shady
Either with sun brown arm or hand,
Darkly they follow the lord and lady


With jealous hatred of house and land.
Fine-it was all so fine to be idle;


Dull and dreary the werk-day doom
Oh, but to ride with the spangled bride!
Oh, for a cap with a tossing plume!
Nearing the castle the bells fell ringing,
And strong men and maidens to work and wal
Cried Gods grace on the brides hOme-bring


ing,"


And master, mistress, rode through the gate.
Five select ladies-maids of the chamber
One sewed her silken seams, one kept her rings
One for the pearl combs one for the amber.
And one for her green fan of peacockwlngs.
And sweetly and long they abode in their castle
And daughters and sons to their love were


born;


But doves at the dew fall homeward nestle,
To lodge in the rafters they left at morn;
And memory. holding true and tender,
AS pleasures faded and years increased,
Oft bore the lady from all her splendOr
Out of the w West-land and into the East.
And far from the couch where sleep so slowly
Came to her eyes through the puppies grand,
Left her to lodge in the bed SO lOwly,


SmOothed by the mothers dear, dear hand,
But after all the ado to assemble


The sunrise pictures to brighten the set,
One there was thrilled her heart to a tremble,
Half made of envy and half of regret
Alb, was it this that in playful sporting.
And not as lamenting her maiden years,
Often she brought from the time of the courting
When hopes are the sweeter for little fears,
That one day of the days so pleasant,


When. while she unused of her lord, as it fell,
Rode from the castle the groom with his present
Dear little dove-t throat, beloved so well?
Or altar, in splendor of lilies and laces,
Long -tressed bride maids, or priest, close shorn
Or ride through the daisies or green field spaces
Gay with children that sowed in the corn?
Ye who have left the noontide behind you,
And whom dull shadows begin to Oppress,
Say, ere the nighttime falleth to blind you,
Which was the picture-pray do you guess? p?
All in the castle was sweet with cOntentment,
For Fortune, in granting all favors but one,
Threw over the distance d cruel enchantment
That darkened the love-Eght and darkene(


the sun.


OF aims and of pleasures, the lifelong bestowers
The lord and the lady had just one lament:
Oh for the lives of the brown little sewers
And oh, for their artless and homely content!