MARCH, 1865.

Ah, Nelly Dale, nigh fifty years

Since you and I set out together,

Joyful both, as the summer weather,

That swarmed our pathway to the meres

So rich with blossom, and opulent

Successive honeysuckle scent,

It smiled a golden garden, gay

With flutter of insects all the way!

The kine were white and smooth as silk

At Flowerdew's, where we went for milk

With jug and can. The can you bore

Jingled and tumbled when you tore

Your new frock striped with lilac, while

Crossing that high-built awkward stile.

Leaving our cottage gates at noon,

Adown the dusty hill we soon

Turned in a water-alley, dry

As our discourse; for we were shy,

Speaking not till the double ranks

Of willows on their shadowed banks

Had closed us from the road, and we

Were all we saw and cared to see.

As if let out from school we ran,

Until we settled stride for stride

To even walking, side by side;

And tho’ to keep apart we tried,

The jug kept clinking against the can!

Once pausing in an upper path

That hemmed great pasture ribbed with math,

We saw the prospect openly

Melt in remote transparent sky;

Some fancy kindled, and I began

To whistle “Tom the Piper's Son,”

Wondering whether, when grown a man,

I should remain to plod, or plan,

As others about had always done,

Or to some wondrous country stray,

Over the hills and far away!

But turning to your comely face,

The opened flower of native grace

That casts a charm on homely ways,

Your mother's boast, her constant praise;

Contented here, I hoped I might

Be never from my darling's sight.

Ah, me, our young delight to roam

Along that lane so far from home!

Laughter, and chatter of this or that;

Ripening strawberries, mice and cat;

The birthday near; the birthday treat,

With something extra good to eat,

And currant, cowslip, elder wine,

As real lords and ladies dine!

Equal delight our silence next;

Making-believe that you are vext,

When swooping round to kiss you I

Tumble your bonnet all awry,

And promptly you the strings untie

To set it duly straight again;

How smartly twinkle ribands twain

To bows, turned sidewise in disdain,

Till by your nimble fingers fixed

They settle amicably mixed!

Moments of mutual mute surprise

Made converse of our glancing eyes,

As we went onward, all things seeming

Strange, and rich, and fair, while dreaming

Transient glimpses of what alone

Is ever by great-winged angels known.

We knew not whether you or I

First saw the splendid butterfly

Trembling about us as we turned

To watch how blue and crimson burned

In flashes‘ twixt those blushing wings!

Nelly, I see you watch the lark

That fluttering high, aspiring sings;

We both watch till our sight grows dark,

And wonder whither he is fled

In sapphire ether overhead.

Tho’ vanished, still his rapture rings

And thrills our bosoms, marching slow

Our winding way; when brilliant, lo

From somewhere starting, re-appears

Our friendly butterfly, and nears

A spider-web, in holly spun

With rainbow hues that net the sun,

Making coy circles ere he alight

Entangled in the toil of death!

Forward I spring, without my breath,

To see the fiend, high-elbowed, whirl

Around those limbs and wings, and twirl

His thread to thwart the chance of flight.

Fate on a single instant hangs,

And ready the demon's eager fangs

To penetrate that sylphic breast!

Nipping the wing-tips gently I

Flirt him from danger suddenly;

Strike with my cap a rapid blow,

Dashing the enemy down below

Thro’ grass crushed safely into dust.

There shivering on my stretched forefinger

A little while his terrors linger,

Doubting if yet his wings to trust,

Ere, with a bolder flap or two,

He flutters into airy blue.

Could any mortal boy resist,

When heavenward, in a rosy pout

Your lips you offered to be kissed;

Fresh as carnations breaking out

Of dewy sheaths, on summer dawns

Yet pale upon the misty lawns!

We pass from shadowy splendour soon

To face the blazoned afternoon,

Where wide around the basking sun

Lies on the meadow fast asleep.

Near random bushes, one by one,

Nestled around a pond, the sheep

Are scattered and doze in graceful shade;

And hazed cornfields beyond the glade,

Undulating and dazzling sight,

Seem quivering for predestined flight

To worlds of unrevealed delight.

In lustrous sheen, their stately looks

Sedate as parsons reading books,

Flock grey-billed, see-saw-gaited rooks

Strutting; or when they wings assume

Pluck the warm air with fingered plume,

Labouring, anxious if weight and size

Make flight most hazardous or wise!

Nelly we sauntered on and on

By hedgerows, brightly overhung

And sprinkled thick with snowy showers

Of woodbine stars; where bindweed flowers

Ample and moon-white nobly shone,

And over green abysses slung,

Mid honey-haunted sound of bees,

Swayed lightly to the scented breeze.

In passing starwort's silvery gems,

By maple's warm fawn-tinted stems,

Caprices that gnarled the oak and thorn,

A sudden scream of rageful scorn

Startles us from the hedgerow nigh;

Whence two disturbed fierce blackbirds fly

Uttering threats of vengeance dire!

While we, who lit this angry fire,

Are wondering such discordant throats

Can tune those soft melodious notes

The fondest lover's listening ear,

At even, turns entranced to hear!

But if I sang of every sight

That afternoon which gave delight,

Those treasures would my numbers throng

Beyond the compass of my song;

Therefore, Nelly, to be precise,

We bought the milk, and paid the price

Charged in that rural paradise.

The rolls of butter, the jars of cream,

Churn, and cleanly pans, now seem,

Thro’ fifty years of vanished time,

The memories of a nursery rhyme;

Or story, like The “Babes in the Wood,”

Written for children to make them good.

Homeward we went in soberer mood;

Haply the weight we had to carry,

By stile and gate oft made us tarry

To change our hands, and ease the weight

By making both co-operate.

At length we knew the hour grew late,

Because we saw our shadows rise,

Mocking our motions, thrice our size;

And keeping faithful phantom pace,

Tempting us to an elfin race

For fairy treasure; all in play!

For which, whatever they might say,

We knew our lives would have to pay!

Both breaking into prattle showed

How pleased we trod the dusty road

Once more; and rested where the rill

Sings issuing, halfway up the hill;

Where maids and wives their pitchers bring

To fill, and gossip at the spring.

To gossip ourselves we durst not stop,

As we had yet to reach the top

Where, starting from before the moon,

Our church spire quickened, rose, and danced

Higher and higher as we advanced,

And on a sudden ceased, as soon

As we were on the level; then,

There your mother stood at the gate

Impatient we were out so late;

Inquiring how, and why, and when;

She thought we had been drowned, and lost,

And by some savage mad bull tossed;

So long had she been looking out!

Whatever had we been about?

Altho’ we saw so much that day,

But little then had we to say,

And told her a bewildered tale

Of garment torn by splintered rail;

Of spiders, blackbirds, butterflies;

Of rooks so near that looked so wise!

Of ghostly shadows, some of the way,

That had been tempting us to play,

Tho’ sure they must have known we should

Be making all the haste we could!

The gentle scolding given and past,

We bade each other good-night at last

When floating in the stillness by

Came sounds like “late,” and “supper,” and “bed;”

And brighter through a deepening sky

A million stars shone o'er my head,

And bats flew fast and silently.

When memory wings her way to you,

I nurse my faith to think it true

For one day, Nelly, you were mine!

Ah, Dearest, had that day divine

Made us two one for good and all!

The nursery words I now recall,

Of Tom the Piper's Son's one tune,

Mused over in that day of June,

Have proved the prelude to my fate!

We were not fashioned to translate

Each other's will as man and wife:

And tho’ I was not broken-hearted,

As Burns when from his Mary parted,

And fled the fragrance of his life;

Yet are you near and dear to me!

For on the bridge below the hill

I see you smile as sweetly still;

And in your clear wide-opened eyes

The spacious wonder of the skies.

While every thoughtful dainty grace

Rests well contented in your face,

All fascinations of the rose,

Uniting in your presence close.

Indeed, from glowing hair to feet,

So lightly poised, shaped so complete

You seem a being‘ twixt a flower,

The glory of a shining hour,

And one ordained to satisfy

The claims of immortality.

Your beauty, like a queen's or king's

Good word, gives price to common things:

That can your ruddy fingers hold

Hangs lovelier there than purest gold;

And, as the poor, grown rich by chance,

Run raptured in extravagance,

My fancy riots in the fields’

Increasing wealth its charter yields:

And at your lintel, by the bower

Of vine leaves screening noonday heat;

The grapes, that hang there small and sour,

Are soft in bloom and more than sweet!

Beholding kittens as they play,

Black, tortoise, white, or silver grey;

Or ducklings on the water glide,

Yellow and soft, and artless eyed:

Or neatly-shapen chicks astray,

Pecking incessantly on their way;

Each such a trim completed creature,

In perfect movement, hue, and feature:

A foolish sadness makes me sigh

They lack immutability.

But you, my Nelly, are ever young.

Fresh and happy you dwell among

The brightest flowers, and flourish where

Meadows are ever fresh and fair.

As you were then I see you now,

Standing beneath an apple bough;

Your face amid its blossoms, bright

With rosy laughter and delight,

You seem a blossom the partial sun

Has chosen to make a larger one.

What may your pilgrimage have been,

Since both of us lost our Eden days,

I never rashly tried to glean;

And know not if your childhood ways

Were trodden by your maiden feet

When, flushed and shy with hope and fear,

You went your loitering swain to meet

And listen to sounds you loved to hear!

But if sometimes your heart was fain

Along our honeysuckle lane

Again to roam, in gracious flight

Your memory would have found delight

In wandering there a child again!

And if a matron you became,

With a matron's worries and daily strife;

The pain and sorrow, the hurt and blame

Mixed with pleasure, of being a wife,

I know not. But of this am sure,

That if with daughters you were blessed,

They found your bright example lure,

Thro’ ways by wisdom proven best,

And sympathetic, generous trust

To kindly conduct more than just.

If old experience yet holds true,

And by a generation's lapse

Your daughter's child resembles you,

Then by that happy law perhaps

Another Nelly may be seen

To grace some other village green;

As native there as morning dew;

Or larks aloft, when lost to view

They lift us thro’ the trembling blue

To soar with them in ecstasy;

Or primroses, whose welcome faces

From sunny banks and shady places,

Tenderly glimmer in pallid gold

Caught as early morning broke,

When, dreaming daylight they awoke

Enamoured from the moistened mold.

And if a Nelly, tho’ changed in name,

Her fair endowments will the same

Point every grace that charmed before

Thro’ unrenowned ancestresses,

Then still there beams a joy that blesses

The traveller by your cottage door;

Who, pleased in after years to trace

Remembrance of your playful face,

May linger on your presence while

Before him still you turn to smile.