Dream Of The City Shopwoman

’TWERE sweet to have a comrade here, Who’d vow to love this garreteer, By city people’s snap and sneer Tried oft and hard!

We’d rove a truant cock and hen To some snug solitary glen, And never be seen to haunt again This teeming yard.

Within a cot of thatch and clay We’d list the flitting pipers play, Our lives a twine of good and gay Enwreathed discreetly;

Our blithest deeds so neighbouring wise That doves should coo in soft surprise, “These must belong to Paradise Who live so sweetly.”

Our clock should be the closing flowers, Our sprinkle-bath the passing showers, Our church the alleyed willow bowers, The truth our theme;

And infant shapes might soon abound: Their shining heads would dot us round Like mushroom balls on grassy ground . . . —But all is dream!

O God, that creatures framed to feel A yearning nature’s strong appeal Should writhe on this eternal wheel In rayless grime;

And vainly note, with wan regret, Each star of early promise set; Till Death relieves, and they forget Their one Life’s time!

WESTBOURNE PARK VILLAS, 1866.

A MAIDEN’S PLEDGE (SONG)

I DO not wish to win your vow To take me soon or late as bride, And lift me from the nook where now I tarry your farings to my side. I am blissful ever to abide In this green labyrinth—let all be, If but, whatever may betide, You do not leave off loving me!

Your comet-comings I will wait With patience time shall not wear through; The yellowing years will not abate My largened love and truth to you, Nor drive me to complaint undue Of absence, much as I may pine, If never another ’twixt us two Shall come, and you stand wholly mine.