The March winds blow. I watch her go: Her eye is brown and clear; Her cheek is brown, and soft as down, (To those who see it near!)-- With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May, Or blooms the eglantine. What has she not that those have got,-- The dames that walk in silk! If she undo her 'kerchief blue, Her neck is white as milk. With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May, Or blooms the eglantine. Let those who will be proud and chill! For me, from June to June, My Dolly's words are sweet as curds-- Her laugh is like a tune;-- With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May, Or blooms the eglantine. Break, break to hear, O crocus-spear! O tall Lent-lilies flame! There'll be a bride at Easter-tide, And Dolly is her name. With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly! Dolly shall be mine, Before the spray is white with May, Or blooms the eglantine. AN OLD FISH POND. Green growths of mosses drop and bead Around the granite brink; And 'twixt the isles of water-weed The wood-birds dip and drink. Slow efts about the edges sleep; Swift-darting water-flies Shoot on the surface; down the deep Fast-following bubbles rise. Look down. What groves that scarcely sway! What "wood obscure," profound! What jungle!--where some beast of prey Might choose his vantage-ground! * * * * * Who knows what lurks beneath the tide?-- Who knows what tale? Belike, Those "antres vast" and shadows hide Some patriarchal Pike;-- Some tough old tyrant, wrinkle-jawed, To whom the sky, the earth, Have but for aim to look on awed And see him wax in girth;-- Hard ruler there by right of might; An ageless Autocrat, Whose "good old rule" is "Appetite, And subjects fresh and fat;"-- While they--poor souls!--in wan despair Still watch for signs in him; And dying, hand from heir to heir The day undawned and dim, When the pond's terror too must go; Or creeping in by stealth, Some bolder brood, with common blow, Shall found a Commonwealth. * * * * * Or say,--perchance the liker this!-- That these themselves are gone; That Amurath _in minimis_,-- Still hungry,--lingers on, With dwindling trunk and wolfish jaw Revolving sullen things, But most the blind unequal law That rules the food of Kings;-- The blot that makes the cosmic All A mere time-honoured cheat;-- That bids the Great to eat the Small, Yet lack the Small to eat!