| |
| WHEN first you trembled at my kiss | |
| And blushed before and after, | |
| Your life, a rose ’twixt May and June, | |
| Was stirred by breeze of laughter. | |
| |
| I asked no mortal maid to leave | 5 |
| A kiss where there were plenty; | |
| Enough the fragrance of your lips | |
| When I was five-and-twenty. | |
| |
| Fair mistress of a moment’s joy, | |
| We met, and then we parted: | 10 |
| You gave me all you had to give, | |
| Nor were you broken-hearted! | |
| |
| For other lips have known your kiss, | |
| Oh! fair inconstant lady, | |
| While you have gone your shameless way | 15 |
| ’Till life has passed its heyday. | |
| |
| And then we met in middle age, | |
| You matronly and older; | |
| And somewhat gone your maiden blush, | |
| And I, well, rather colder. | 20 |
| |
| And now that you are thin and pale, | |
| And I am slowly graying, | |
| We meet, remindful of the past, | |
| When we two went a-Maying. | |
| |
| Alas! while you, an old coquette, | 25 |
| Still flaunt your faded roses, | |
| The arctic loneliness of age | |
| Around my pathway closes. | |
| |
| Dear aged wanton of the feast, | |
| Egeria of gay dinners, | 30 |
| I leave your unforgotten charm | |
| To other younger sinners. | |
| |
| Or was it some love-wildered beau | |
| Of old colonial days, | |
| With clouded cane and broidered coat, | 35 |
| And very artful ways? | |
| |
| And did he whisper through her curls | |
| Some wicked, pleasant vow, | |
| And swear no courtly dame had words | |
| As sweet as “thee” and “thou”? | 40 |
| |
| Or did he praise her dimpled chin | |
| In eager song or sonnet, | |
| And find a merry way to cheat | |
| Her kiss-defying bonnet? | |
| |
| And sang he then in verses gay, | 45 |
| Amid this forest shady, | |
| The dainty flower at her feet | |
| Was like his Quaker lady? | |
| |
| And did she pine in English fogs, | |
| Or was his love enough? | 50 |
| And did she learn to sport the fan, | |
| And use the patch and puff? | |
| |
| Alas! Perhaps she played quadrille, | |
| And, naughty grown and older, | |
| Was pleased to show a dainty neck, | 55 |
| Above a dainty shoulder. | |
| |
| But sometimes in the spring, I think, | |
| She saw, as in a dream, | |
| The meeting-house, the home sedate, | |
| The Schuylkill’s quiet stream; | 60 |
| |
| And sometimes in the minuet’s pause | |
| Her heart went wide afield, | |
| To where, amid the woods of May, | |
| A blush its love revealed. | |
| |
| ’Till far away from court and king, | 65 |
| And powder and brocade, | |
| The Quaker ladies at her feet | |
| Their quaint obeisance made. | |
| |
