After Jean Ingelow
Lovers, and a Reflection
IN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter),
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;
Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats waver’d alow, above:
Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And oh, the sundazzle on bark and bight!
Thro’ the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:
By rises that flush’d with their purple favors,
Thro’ becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,
We walked and waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.
We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:
Songbirds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!
But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,
Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;
They need no parasols, no goloshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.
Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst His heather)
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;
And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—
Our fingers at Fate and her goodness-glooms:
And Willie ‘gan sing (oh, his notes were fluty;
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)—
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,
Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry:”
Bowers of flowers encounter’d showers
In William’s carol—(O love my Willie!)
Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow
I quite forget what—say a daffodilly:
A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden—
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:
Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,
And all least furlable things got “furled;”
Not with any design to conceal their “glories,”
But simply and solely to rhyme with “world.”
O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted or carried on “wafts” away,
Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be!
Charles S. Calverley.
The Shrimp-Gatherers
SCARLET spaces of sand and ocean,
Gulls that circle and winds that blow;
Baskets and boats and men in motion,
Sailing and scattering to and fro.
Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning
With crimson sprinkles the broad gray flood;
And down the beach the blush of the morning
Shines reflected from moisture and mud.
Broad from the yard the sail hangs limpy;
Lightly the steersman whistles a lay;
Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy,
Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!
Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty!
Coffee is certain, and beer galore;
Coats are corduroy, minds are thrifty,
Won’t we go it on sea and shore!
See, behind, how the hills are freckled
With low white huts, where the lasses bide
See, before, how the sea is speckled
With sloops and schooners that wait the tide
Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister,
Tyne-side boys may shout, “Give way!”
Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster,
Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!
Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle,
Such are the sea-fruits lasses love;
Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle,
And the shutterless cottages gleam above!
Bayard Taylor.