Harry | Page 6

or sea,?Skies or breezes as they move,
Earth is sweet?'Neath my feet,?Heaven sweeter yet above;
And the air?Ev'rywhere?Is the sweetest of the three;
I will take,?For their sake,?Anything they bring to me!
Men flocking round me, I find I'm admir'd;?Praise is as sweet as a gratified whim;?When a girl pleases she never feels tir'd--?Harry smiles at me, and I smile at him.?Through the open doors of a crystal dome?Sweet is the scent of the tropical flowers,?The splendid exiles who, banish'd from home,?Are sparkling and shining to gladden ours.?Figures appearing 'mid blossom and fruit,?In an airy, fairy, magical way;?Their lips keep moving altho' they are mute?For ears too distant to hear what they say.
From a lily bud can a voice be sent?--?'Let us hope the Captain's wild oats are sown;?A pretty young wife should make him content'--?Only a word in a soft-spoken tone!
Moving serenely 'mid beauty and song,?Am not I born for the glittering throng??Treading on roses with delicate feet,?Is not a life a perpetual treat??Can we be more than delighted and blest??Pleasure is beautiful--is it the best??Highest and best that our nature can know??Answer my heart--and my heart answers No.?And my heart answers, 'more beautiful yet?Life is for those who leave Home with regret,?And greet it again as the sailor greets shore,?Gaily returning to life gone before.'
Thus from the banquet two lovers depart,?Owning thy truth, lovely voice of my heart;?Seeking a home that, whatever befall,?Is brighter and sweeter and dearer than all;?Better than all that the world can decree,?For happy young creatures like Harry and me!
Self-ordained critics, we sit at our ease,?Life spread before us to judge as we please;?Harry in quite a ridiculous way?Prates about wine, like a swell in a play;?Next, the made dishes proceeding to scan,?With wisdom becoming a greedy old man;?Looking so charmingly youthful and gay,?I laugh in his face at his airs of gourmet;?Admitting myself but three things to be nice--?Champagne, lobster salad, and strawberry ice.
Then pass the people in sparkling review;?I ask fifty questions beginning with Who??Midnight approaches--a sense of repose?Floating about me, my eyelids half close;?Rising, I languidly say, 'By the bye,?Who is the Captain?' he laughs in reply,?Stands up in front of me, just face to face,?Makes me a bow with an air and a grace:?'The Captain this moment before you' you see--?That's my nickname in the country,' says he.?Pleasantly sleepy I felt ere he spake,?Now I am thoroughly widely awake;?A shock passes through me of horrid surprise,?I turn upon Harry my wondering eyes,?Catching at hopes, as the drowning at straws,?I cry, as the truth for a moment withdraws,?'You're quizzing me, Harry--that's what you're at,?It cannot_ be _you that they speak of like that!'?Then he insists on my telling, displeas'd?At any concealment, WHAT have I heard??Worried and wearied, bewilder'd and teaz'd,?I blurt it out and repeat every word!?Harry regards me with almost a stare--?Pulls his moustache with a sort of amaze--?Passes his hand through his clustering hair?And--bursts out laughing, as if it was praise!?There is nothing so sweet or full of grace?(Can one who has seen it ever forget?)?As the smile that comes over Harry's face;?It is Heaven on earth--and yet--and yet--?I feel a strange chill steal into my heart--?Should he permit such remarks from the crowd??Can it be their part? Can it be his part??They the mean snobs! he the noble and proud!
No shooting to-day of partridge or snipe;?It has steadily rained since morning broke,?In dancing spirits I kindle his pipe?(I am learning to like the smell of smoke!)
He has given up such a deal for me!?He likes to give up his bachelor way;?He says it is charming not to be free,?So he only smokes one pipe in the day.
Together we sit in his little room,?Which is fitted up like a dainty toy;?And if without there is darkness and gloom,?Within there is plenty of light and joy.
'Tell me of all you have done, if you can,'?I cry, as the pretty smoke lightly curls;?'I want to hear of the life of a man?I, who only know of the life of girls!'
He shakes his head with a smile and a nod,?The smoke curling round it with idle aim;?He is like the picture of some young god,?Who, from painted clouds, looks out of a frame.
'The life of a girl is a fairy thing,?With a sweetness none can wish to forget,?Caught from a snowdrop in earliest spring?Or the first faint breath of a violet;?The life of a man, as it is and was,?Is like autumn leaves decaying and dead,?With a flavour of bad theatrical gas,?And of last night's banquet,' my husband said.
I laugh'd at the gay nonsensical speech,?In my merry pride at being his wife;?I sat at his feet, and I bade him teach?A neophyte out of his noble life.
He mutter'd 'My noble life!' with a frown,?'With noble lives I have little to do;?My dear, put those frivolous notions