Companions 1737 I cannot recall her figure: Was it regal as Juno's own? Or only a trifle bigger Than the elves who surround the throne. Of the Fairy Queen, and are seen, I ween, By mortals in dreams alone? What her eyes were like I know not: Her teeth, I presume, were "pearly": I But which was she, brunette or blonde? Her hair, was it quaintly curly, Or as straight as a beadle's wand? That I failed to remark: it was rather dark Then the hand that reposed so snugly In mine, was it plump or spare? Was the countenance fair or ugly? Nay, children, you have me there! I My eyes were p'haps blurred; and besides I'd heard And I, was I brusque and surly? Or why did we twain abscond, What passed, what was felt or spoken, Whether anything passed at all,- And whether the heart was broken That beat under that sheltering shawl,— (If shawl she had on, which I doubt),—has gone, Yes, gone from me past recall. Was I haply the lady's suitor? As to why we were there, who on earth we were, Charles Stuart Calverley [1831-1884] DOROTHY Q A FAMILY PORTRAIT GRANDMOTHER'S mother: her age, I guess, Thirteen summers, or something less; Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; On her hand a parrot green Look! there's a rent the light shines through Dark with a century's fringe of dust,→ That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust! Such is the tale the lady old, Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. Who the painter was none may tell,→ Dainty colors of red and white, Look not on her with eyes of scorn,— Dorothy Q Ay! since the galloping Normans came, O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! Save to daughter or son might bring,- All my title to house and land; Mother and sister and child and wife What if a hundred years ago Those close-shut lips had answered No, One tenth another, to nine tenths me? Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES: Not the light gossamer stirs with less; That lives in the babbling air so long! 1739. There were tones in the voice that whispered then O lady and lover, how faint and far Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive It shall be a blessing, my little maid! I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, MY AUNT My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! I know it hurts her, though she looks Her waist is ampler than her life, For life is but a span. My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Why will she train that winter curl And say she reads as well, When, through a double convex lens, She just makes out to spell? Her father, grandpapa! forgive This erring lip its smiles, Vowed she should make the finest girl Within a hundred miles; He sent her to a stylish school; 'Twas in her thirteenth June; And with her, as the rules required, The Last Leaf They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, Oh, never mortal suffered more So, when my precious aunt was done, "What could this lovely creature do Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Nor bandit cavalcade, Tore from the trembling father's arms His all-accomplished maid. For her how happy had it been! To see one sad, ungathered rose 1741 Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] THE LAST LEAF I SAW him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o'er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time |