MY KATE.

She was not as pretty as women I know,

And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow

Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,

While she's still remembered on warm and cold days —

My Kate.

Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;

You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face:

And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,

You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth —

My Kate.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,

You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:

When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,

Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone —

My Kate.

I doubt if she said to you much that could act

As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract

In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer

‘ T was her thinking of others made you think of her —

My Kate.

She never found fault with you, never implied

Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side

Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town

The children were gladder that pulled at her gown —

My Kate.

None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;

They knelt more to God than they used,— that was all:

If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,

But the charm of her presence was felt when she went —

My Kate.

The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,

She took as she found them, and did them all good;

It always was so with her — see what you have!

She has made the grass greener even here... with her grave —

My Kate.

My dear one!— when thou wast alive with the rest,

I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:

And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part

As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart —

My Kate?