I know, Justine-for I have heard
What friendly voices tell-
You do not blush to say the word,
"You like me passing well";
And thus the fatal sound I hear

That seals my lonely lot:

There's nothing now to hope or fear—

Justine, you love me not!

John Godfrey Saxe [1816-1887]

SNOWDROP

WHEN, full of warm and eager love,
I clasp you in my fond embrace,

You gently push me back and say,

"Take care, my dear, you'll spoil my lace."

You kiss me just as you would kiss

Some woman friend you chanced to see; You call me dearest."-All love's forms

Are yours, not its reality.

Oh, Annie! cry, and storm, and rave!
Do anything with passion in it!

Hate me an hour, and then turn round
And love me truly, just one minute.
William Wetmore Story [1819-1895]

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,

At the last of the thirty palace-gates,

The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,

Orders a feast in his favorite room-
Glittering squares of colored ice,

When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan 835

Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,

Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;
And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots

Of spiced meats and costliest fish

And all that the curious palate could wish,

Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;
Scattered over mosaic floors

Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
And a musical fountain throws its jets
Of a hundred colors into the air.
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
And stains with the henna-plant the tips
Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips
Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows,
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman
When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand The dancing-girls of Samarcand Glide in like shapes from fairy-land, Making a sudden mist in air

Of fleecy veils and floating hair

And white arms lifted. Orient blood
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.
And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;
And her Arab lover sits with her.
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light,
Flaming, flickering on the night.
From my neighbor's casement opposite,

I know as well as I know to pray,
I know as well as a tongue can say,
That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman
Has gone to the city Ispahan.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1837-1907]

THE SHADOW DANCE

SHE sees her image in the glass,-
How fair a thing to gaze upon!
She lingers while the moments run,
With happy thoughts that come and pass,

Like winds across the meadow grass
When the young June is just begun:

She sees her image in the glass,—
How fair a thing to gaze upon!

What wealth of gold the skies amass!
How glad are all things 'neath the sun!
How true the love her love has won!
She recks not that this hour will pass,-
She sees her image in the glass.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE

POOR Rose! I lift you from the street-
Far better I should own you

Than you should lie for random feet

Where careless hands have thrown you!

Poor pinky petals, crushed and torn!
Did heartless Mayfair use you,
Then cast you forth to lie forlorn,
For chariot-wheels to bruise you?

I saw you last in Edith's hair.
Rose, you would scarce discover
That I she passed upon the stair

Was Edith's favored lover,

Along the Field as We Came By" 837

A month-"a little month"-ago—

O theme for moral writer!

'Twixt you and me, my Rose, you know,
She might have been politer;

But let that pass. She gave you then-
Behind the oleander-

To one, perhaps, of all the men,

Who best could understand her,

Cyril, that, duly flattered, took,
As only Cyril's able,

With just the same Arcadian look
He used, last night, for Mabel;

Then, having waltzed till every star
Had paled away in morning,
Lit up his cynical cigar,

And tossed you downward, scorning.

Kismet, my Rose! Revenge is sweet,—
She made my heart-strings quiver;

And yet You sha'n't lie in the street,
I'll drop you in the River.

Austin Dobson [1840

"ALONG THE FIELD AS WE CAME BY"

ALONG the field as we came by

A year ago, my love and I,

The aspen over stile and stone

Was talking to itself alone.

"Oh, who are these that kiss and pass?

A country lover and his lass;

Two lovers looking to be wed;

And time shall put them both to bed,

But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love."

And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,
But now perhaps they speak to her,
And plain for her to understand
They talk about a time at hand
When I shall sleep with clover clad,
And she beside another lad.

Alfred Edward Housman [1859

"WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY"

WHEN I was one-and-twenty

I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."

And I am two-and-twenty,

And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859

"GRIEVE NOT, LADIES"

Он grieve not, Ladies, if at night
You wake to feel your beauty going;

It was a web of frail delight,

Inconstant as an April snowing.