Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon:
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew
Ne'er to be found again.

Fair cousin mine! the golden days
— Of old romance are over;
And minstrels now care naught for bays,
— Nor damsels for a lover;
And hearts are cold, and lips are mute
— That kindled once with passion,
And now we've neither lance nor lute,
— And tilting's out of fashion.

Yet weeping Beauty mourns the time
— When Love found words in flowers;
When softest sighs were breathed in rhyme,
— And sweetest songs in bowers;
Now wedlock is a sober thing —
— No more of chains or forges! —
A plain young man — a plain gold ring —

On Her Christening-Day

Fair Caroline, I wonder what
You think of earth as a dwelling-spot,
And if you'd rather have come, or not?

To-day has laid on you a name
That, though unasked for, you will claim
Lifelong, for love or praise or blame.

May chance and change impose on you
No heavier burthen than this new
Care-chosen one your future through!

Dear stranger here, the prayer is mine
That your experience may combine
Good things with glad. . . . Yes, Caroline!

Fair as the night — when all the astral fires
Of heaven are burning in the clear expanse,
My love is; and her eyes like star-depths glance
Lustrous with glowing thoughts and pure desires,
And that mysterious pathos which inspires
All moods divine in mortal passion's trance —
All that its earthly music doth enhance
As with the rapture of seraphic lyres!
I gaze upon her till the atmosphere
Sweetens intensely, and to my charmed sight
All fair associated forms appear
Swimming in joy, as swim yon orbs in light —

1.

Fair Annie had a costly bower,
 Well built wi lime and stane,
And Willie came to visit her,
 Wi the light o the meen.

2.

When he came to Annie's bower-door,
 He tirled at the pin:
“Ye sleep ye, wake ye, Fair Annie,
 Ye'll open, lat me come in.”

3.

“O never a fit,” says Fair Annie,
 “Till I your errand ken;”
“My father's vowd a vow, Annie,
 I'll tell you when I'm in.

4.

“My father's vowed a rash vow,
 I darena marry thee;
My mither's vowed anither vow,

Fair, and soft, and gay, and young,
All charm! she played, she danced, she sung!
There was no way to 'scape the dart,
No care could guard the lover's heart.
" Ah! why," cried I, and dropped a tear
(Adoring, yet despairing e'er
To have her to myself alone),
" Was so much sweetness made for one?"

But growing bolder, in her ear
I in soft numbers told my care:
She heard, and raised me from her feet,
And seemed to glow with equal heat.
Like heaven's, too mighty to express,
My joys could but be known by guess.

The faint-flushed buds awake within the cup
Of myriad folded roses yet to be;
Ere Life can drink its utmost sweetness up,
Love flutters, wakens, O how sweet to see!

( " MADELINE BRIDGES " )

Faint , faint and clear,
Faint as the music that in dreams we hear
Shaking the curtain-fold of sleep,
That shuts away
The world's hoarse voice, the sights and sounds of day,
Her sorry joys, her phantoms false and fleet, —
So softly, softly stirs
The wind's low murmur in the rippled wheat.

From west to east
The warm breath blows, the slender heads droop low
As if in prayer;
Again, more lightly tossed in merry play,
They bend and bow and sway
With measured beat,

Fain would my thoughts fly up to Thee,
Thy peace, sweet Lord , to find;
But when I offer, still the world
Lays clogs upon my mind.

Sometimes I climb a little way
And thence look down below;
How nothing, there, do all things seem,
That here make such a show!

Then round about I turn my eyes
To feast my hungry sight;
I meet with Heaven in every thing,
In every thing delight.

When I have thus triumph'd awhile,
And think to build my nest,
Some cross conceits come fluttering by,
And interrupt my rest.

To hear the unlucky wife of Bicci cough,
(Bicci, — Forese as he's called, you know, — )
You'd fancy she had wintered, sure enough,
Where icebergs rear themselves in constant snow:
And Lord! if in mid-August it is so,
How in the frozen months must she come off?
To wear her socks abed avails not, — no,
Nor quilting from Cortona, warm and tough.
Her cough, her cold, and all her other ills,
Do not afflict her through the rheum of age,
But through some want within her nest, poor spouse!
This grief, with other griefs, her mother feels,