MAGGIE A LADY.

You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,

For I'm Lady of the Manor now stately to see;

And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,

‘ T will be little lord or lady at my knee.

O, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,

That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?

You're as white as I turned once down by the mill,

When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:

Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl

( It was the Miller's Nancy told it to me ),

Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,

Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;

I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,

Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint

For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

They said I looked so pale,— some say so fair,—

My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:

I know I missed a ringlet from my hair

Next morning; and now I am his wife.

Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,

I'm all crimson and gold from top to toe:

All day long I sit in the sun and sing,

Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

And I'm the rose of roses says my lord;

And to him I'm more than the sun in the sky,

While I hold him fast with the golden cord

Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

His mother said “fie,” and his sisters cried “shame,”

His high-born ladies cried “shame” from their place:

They said “fie” when they only heard my name,

But fell silent when they saw my face.

Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think

I was so fair when we played boy and girl,

Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink

Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent awhirl?

If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now,

Sitting where a score of servants stand,

With a coronet on high days for my brow

And almost a sceptre for my hand.

You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,

A stranger on land and at home on the sea,

Coasting as best you may from town to town:

Coasting along do you often think of me?

I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower,

With hands grown white through having naught to do:

Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour

Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.