Cold? Would I knew! Perhaps you loved, And mourned him all a virgin life. Perhaps forgot his very name As happy mother, happy wife. Unanswered, sad, I turn away-- "You loved _her_ first, then?" _First_--well--no-- You little goose, the Harland will Was proved full sixty years ago.
But Katrine's lands to-day are known To lawyers as the Glass House tract; Who were her heirs, no record shows; The title's bad, in point of fact, If she left children, at her death, I've been retained to clear the title; And all the questions, raised above, Are, you'll perceive, extremely vital.
The squadrons of the sun still hold The western hills, their armor glances, Their crimson banners wide unfold, Low-levelled lie their golden lances. The shadows lurk along the shore, Where, as our row-boat lightly passes, The ripples startled by our oar, Hide murmuring 'neath the hanging grasses.
Your eyes are downcast, for the light Is lingering on your lids--forgetting How late it is--for one last sight Of you the sun delays his setting. One hand droops idly from the boat, And round the white and swaying fingers, Like half-blown lilies gone afloat, The amorous water, toying, lingers.
I see you smile behind your book, Your gentle eyes concealing, under Their drooping lids a laughing look That's partly fun, and partly wonder That I, a man of presence grave, Who fight for bread 'neath Themis' banner Should all at once begin to rave In this--I trust--Aldrichian manner.
They say our lake is--sad, but true-- The mill-pond of a Yankee village, Its swelling shores devoted to The various forms of kitchen tillage; That you're no more a maiden fair, And I no lover, young and glowing; Just an old, sober, married pair, Who, after tea, have gone out rowing
Ah, dear, when memories, old and sweet, Have fooled my reason thus, believe me, Your eyes can only help the cheat, Your smile more thoroughly deceive me. I think it well that men, dear wife, Are sometimes with such madness smitten, Else little joy would be in life, And little poetry be written.
The lights blaze high in our brilliant rooms; Fair are the maidens who throng our halls; Soft, through the warm and perfumed air, The languid music swells and falls. The "Seventh" dances and flirts to-night-- All we are fit for, so they say, We fops and weaklings, who masquerade As soldiers, sometimes, in black and gray.