A Selection from the Works of Frederick Locker Part 5

How kind to come! it was for my Especial grace meant!

Had you a chamber near the stars, A bird,--some treasured plants in jars, About your cas.e.m.e.nt?

I often wander up and down, When morning bathes the silent town In golden glory: Perchance, unwittingly, I've heard Your thrilling-toned canary-bird From some third story.

I've seen great changes since we met;-- A patient little seamstress yet, With small means striving, Have you a Lilliputian spouse?

And do you dwell in some doll's house?

--Is baby thriving?

Can bloom like thine--my heart grows chill-- Have sought that bourne unwelcome still To bosom smarting?

The most forlorn--what worms we are!-- Would wish to finish this cigar Before departing.

Sometimes I to Pall Mall repair, And see the damsels pa.s.sing there; But if I try to Obtain one glance, they look discreet, As though they'd some one else to meet;-- As have not _I_ too?

Yet still I often think upon Our many meetings, come and gone!

July--December!

Now let us make a tryst, and when, Dear little soul, we meet again,-- The mansion is preparing--then Thy Friend remember!

GERALDINE.

This simple child has claims On your sentiment--her name's Geraldine.

Be tender--but beware, For she's frolicsome as fair, And fifteen.

She has gifts that have not cloyed, For these gifts she has employed, And improved: She has bliss which lives and leans Upon loving--and that means She is loved.

She has grace. A grace refined By sweet harmony of mind: And the Art, And the blessed Nature, too, Of a tender, and a true Little heart.

And yet I must not vault Over any little fault That she owns: Or others might rebel, And might enviously swell In their zones.

She is tricksy as the fays, Or her p.u.s.s.y when it plays With a string: She's a goose about her cat, And her ribbons--and all that Sort of thing.

These foibles are a blot, Still she never can do what Is not nice, Such as quarrel, and give slaps-- As I've known her get, perhaps, Once or twice.

The spells that move her soul Are subtle--sad or droll-- She can show That virtuoso whim Which consecrates our dim Long-ago.

A love that is not sham For Stothard, Blake, and Lamb; And I've known Cordelia's sad eyes Cause angel-tears to rise In her own.

Her gentle spirit yearns When she reads of Robin Burns-- Luckless Bard!

Had she blossomed in thy time, How rare had been the rhyme --And reward!

Thrice happy then is he Who, planting such a Tree, Sees it bloom To shelter him--indeed We have sorrow as we speed To our doom!

I am happy having grown Such a Sapling of my own; And I crave No garland for my brows, But peace beneath its boughs Till the grave.

"O DOMINE DEUS,

"O DOMINE DEUS, SPERAVI IN TE, O CARE MI JESU, NUNC LIBERA ME."

Her quiet resting-place is far away, None dwelling there can tell you her sad story: The stones are mute. The stones could only say, "A humble spirit pa.s.sed away to glory."

She loved the murmur of this mighty town, The lark rejoiced her from its lattice prison; A streamlet soothes her now,--the bird has flown,-- Some dust is waiting there--a soul has risen.

No city smoke to stain the heather bells,-- Sigh, gentle winds, around my lone love sleeping,-- She bore her burthen here, but now she dwells Where scorner never came, and none are weeping.

O cough! O cruel cough! O gasping breath!

These arms were round my darling at the latest: All scenes of death are woe--but painful death In those we dearly love is surely greatest!

I could not die. HE willed it otherwise; My lot is here, and sorrow, wearing older, Weighs down the heart, but does not fill the eyes, And even friends may think that I am colder.

I might have been more kind, more tender; now Repining wrings my bosom. I am grateful No eye can see this mark upon my brow, Yet even gay companionship is hateful.

But when at times I steal away from these, And find her grave, and pray to be forgiven, And when I watch beside her on my knees, I think I am a little nearer heaven.

THE HOUSEMAID.

"Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide."

Alone she sits, with air resigned She watches by the window-blind: Poor girl! No doubt The pilgrims here despise thy lot: Thou canst not stir--because 'tis not Thy _Sunday out_.

To play a game of hide and seek With dust and cobwebs all the week, Small pleasure yields: O dear, how nice it is to drop One's scrubbing-brush, one's pail and mop-- And scour the fields!

Poor Bodies some such Sundays know; They seldom come. How soon they go!

But Souls can roam.

And, lapt in visions airy-sweet, She sees in this too doleful street Her own loved Home!

The road is now no road. She pranks A brawling stream with thymy banks; In Fancy's realm This post sustains no lamp--aloof It spreads above her parents' roof A gracious elm.

How often has she valued there A father's aid--a mother's care:-- She now has neither: And yet--such work in dreams is done, She still may sit and smile with one More dear than either.

The poor can love through woe and pain, Although their homely speech is fain To halt in fetters: They feel as much, and do far more Than those, at times of meaner ore, Miscalled _their Betters_.

Sometimes, on summer afternoons Of sundry sunny Mays and Junes-- Meet Sunday weather, I pa.s.s her window by design, And wish her _Sunday out_ and mine Might fall together.

For sweet it were my lot to dower With one brief joy, one white-robed flower; And prude, or preacher, Could hardly deem it much amiss To lay one on the path of this Forlorn young creature.

Yet if her thought on wooing runs-- And if her swain and she are ones Who fancy strolling, She'd like my nonsense less than his, And so it's better as it is-- And that's consoling.