The Pet Name

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one

That sinks with all we love below the verge;

So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

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Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

THE PET NAME

the name

Which from their lips seemed a caress."

-MISS MILFORD'S "DRAMATIC SCENES

Though I write books, it will be read
Upon the leaves of none,

And afterward, when I am dead,

Will ne'er be graved for sight or tread,

Across my funeral-stone.

""

This name, whoever chance to call,
Perhaps your smile may win:
Nay, do not smile! mine eyelids fall
Over mine eyes and feel withal
The sudden tears within.

Is there a leaf, that greenly grows
Where summer meadows bloom,
But gathereth the winter snows,
And changeth to the hue of those,
If lasting till they come?

Is there a word, or jest, or game,
But time incrusteth round
With sad associate thoughts the same?
And so to me my very name

Assumes a mournful sound.

My brother gave that name to me
When we were children twain,
When names acquired baptismally
Were hard to utter, as to see
That life had any pain.

No shade was on us then, save one

Of chestnuts from the hill;

And through the word our laugh did run As part thereof: the mirth being done, He calls me by it still.

Nay, do not smile! I hear in it

What none of you can hear,

The talk upon the willow seat,
The bird and wind that did repeat
Around, our human cheer.

I hear the birthday's noisy bliss

My sisters' woodland glee,
My father's praise I did not miss
When stooping down, he cared to kiss
The poet at his knee,--

Threescore and Ten

And voices which, to name me, aye
Their tenderest tones were keeping,—
To some I nevermore can say

An answer till God wipes away

In heaven these drops of weeping.

My name to me a sadness wears:

No murmurs cross my mind

Now God be thanked for these thick tears,
Which show, of those departed years,
Sweet memories left behind.

Now God be thanked for years enwrought
With love which softens yet:

Now God be thanked for every thought
Which is so tender it has caught

Earth's guerdon of regret.

Earth saddens, never shall remove

Affections purely given;

And e'en that mortal grief shall prove

The immortality of love,

And heighten it with Heaven.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

THREESCORE AND TEN

WHO reach their threescore years and ten,

As I have mine, without a sigh, Are either more or less than menNot such am I.

I am not of them; life to me

Has been a strange, bewildering dream,
Wherein I knew not things that be
From things that seem.

I thought, I hoped, I knew one thing,

And had one gift, when I was young—
The impulse and the power to sing,
And so I sung.

To have a place in the high choir
Of poets, and deserve the same-
What more could mortal man desire
Than poet's fame?

I sought it long, but never found;
The choir so full was and so strong
The jubilant voices there, they drowned
My simple song.

Men would not hear me then, and now
I care not, I accept my fate,
When white hairs thatch the furrowed brow
Crowns come too late!

The best of life went long ago

From me; it was not much at best; Only the love that young hearts know, The dear unrest.

Back on my past, through gathering tears,
Once more I cast my eyes, and see
Bright shapes that in my better years
Surrounded me!

They left me here, they left me there,
Went down dark pathways, one by one—
The wise, the great, the young, the fair;
But I went on.

And I go on! And bad or good,
The old allotted years of men

I have endured as best I could,
Threescore and ten!

Richard Henry Stoddard [1825-1903]

RAIN ON THE ROOF

WHEN the humid shadows hover
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,

Rain on the Roof

What a bliss to press the pillow

Of a cottage-chamber bed, And to listen to the patter

Of the soft rain overhead!

Every tinkle on the shingles
Has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start,
And a thousand recollections

Weave their air-threads into woof,

As I listen to the patter

Of the rain upon the roof.

Now in memory comes my mother,
As she used, in years agone,
To regard the darling dreamers

Ere she left them till the dawn;
And I feel her fond look on me,
As I list to this refrain
Which is played upon the shingles
By the patter of the rain.

Then my little seraph sister,

With her wings and waving hair, And her star-eyed cherub brotherA serene angelic pair

Glide around my wakeful pillow,

With their praise or mild reproof,

As I listen to the murmur

Of the soft rain on the roof.

And another comes, to thrill ine
With her eyes' delicious blue;
And I mind not, musing on her,
That her heart was all untrue:

I remember but to love her

With a passion kin to pain,
And my heart's quick pulses vibrate
To the patter of the rain.

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