And having worn a mournful gown, I joined, in decent while, My husband at a dashing town To live in dashing style. Yet though I now enjoy my fling, And dine and dance and drive, I’d give my prettiest emerald ring To see my lord alive. And when the meet on hunting-days Is near his churchyard home, I leave my bantering beaux to place A flower upon his tomb; And sometimes say: “Perhaps too late The saints in Heaven deplore That tender time when, moved by Fate, He darked my cottage door.” THE REMINDER WHILE I watch the Christmas blaze Paint the room with ruddy rays, Something makes my vision glide To the frosty scene outside. There, to reach a rotting berry, Toils a thrush,—constrained to very Dregs of food by sharp distress, Taking such with thankfulness. Why, O starving bird, when I One day’s joy would justify, And put misery out of view, Do you make me notice you! THE RAMBLER I DO not see the hills around, Nor mark the tints the copses wear; I do not note the grassy ground And constellated daisies there. I hear not the contralto note Of cuckoos hid on either hand, The whirr that shakes the nighthawk’s throat When eve’s brown awning hoods the land. Some say each songster, tree, and mead— All eloquent of love divine— Receives their constant careful heed: Such keen appraisement is not mine. The tones around me that I hear, The aspects, meanings, shapes I see, Are those far back ones missed when near, And now perceived too late by me! NIGHT IN THE OLD HOME When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast, And Life’s bare pathway looms like a desert track to me, And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest, My perished people who housed them here come back to me. They come and seat them around in their mouldy places, Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness, A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces, And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness. “Do you uphold me, lingering and languishing here, A pale late plant of your once strong stock?” I say to them; “A thinker of crooked thoughts upon Life in the sere, And on That which consigns men to night after showing the day to them?” “—O let be the Wherefore! We fevered our years not thus: Take of Life what it grants, without question!” they answer me seemingly. “Enjoy, suffer, wait: spread the table here freely like us, And, satisfied, placid, unfretting, watch Time away beamingly!” AFTER THE LAST BREATH (J. H. 1813–1904) THERE’S no more to be done, or feared, or hoped; None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire; No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped Does she require.