Riley Love-Lyrics | Page 9

by the stile,?An' up an' down the river?I ha' won for mony a mile,?Yet never found, adrift or drown'd,?Your lang-belated smile.
Is it forgot, my Mary,?How glad we used to be?--?The simmer-time when bonny bloomed?The auld trysting-tree,--?How there I carved the name for you,?An' you the name for me;?An' the gloamin' kenned it only?When we kissed sae tenderly.
Speek ance to me, my Mary!--?But whisper in my ear?As light as ony sleeper's breath,?An' a' my soul will hear;?My heart shall stap its beating?An' the soughing atmosphere?Be hushed the while I leaning smile?An' listen to you, dear!
My Mary, O my Mary!?The blossoms bring the bees;?The sunshine brings the blossoms,?An' the leaves on a' the trees;?The simmer brings the sunshine?An' the fragrance o' the breeze,--?But O wi'out you, Mary,?I care nae thing for these!
[Illustration: (THE AULD TRYSTING-TREE)]
We were sae happy, Mary!?O think how ance we said--?Wad ane o' us gae fickle,?Or ane o' us lie dead,--?To feel anither's kisses?We wad feign the auld instead,?An' ken the ither's footsteps?In the green grass owerhead.
My Mary, O my Mary!?Are ye daughter o' the air,?That ye vanish aye before me?As I follow everywhere?--?Or is it ye are only?But a mortal, wan wi' care?--?Syne I search through a' the kirkyird?An' I dinna find ye there!
[Illustration: (MY MARY--TAILPIECE)]
HOME AT NIGHT
When chirping crickets fainter cry,?And pale stars blossom in the sky,?And twilight's gloom has dimmed the bloom?And blurred the butterfly:
When locust-blossoms fleck the walk,?And up the tiger-lily stalk?The glow-worm crawls and clings and falls?And glimmers down the garden-walls:
When buzzing things, with double wings?Of crisp and raspish flutterings,?Go whizzing by so very nigh?One thinks of fangs and stings:--
O then, within, is stilled the din?Of crib she rocks the baby in,?And heart and gate and latch's weight?Are lifted--and the lips of Kate.
[Illustration: (HOME AT NIGHT)]
[Illustration: (WHEN LIDE MARRIED Him--TITLE)]
WHEN LIDE MARRIED HIM
When Lide married him--w'y, she had to jes dee-fy?The whole poppilation!--But she never bat' an eye!?Her parents begged, and threatened_--she must give him up--that _he Wuz jes "a common drunkard!"--And he wuz, appearantly.--
Swore they'd chase him off the place?Ef he ever showed his face--?Long after she'd eloped_ with him and _married him fer shore!-- When Lide married him_, it wuz "_Katy, bar the door!"
When Lide married him--Well! she had to go and be?A hired girl in town somewheres--while he tromped round to see What he_ could git that _he could do,--you might say, jes sawed wood From door to door!--that's what he done--'cause that wuz best he could!
And the strangest thing, i jing!?Wuz, he didn't drink a thing,--?But jes got down to bizness, like he someway wanted to,?When Lide married him, like they warned her not to do!
When Lide married him_--er, ruther, _had ben married?A little up'ards of a year--some feller come and carried?That hired girl_ away with him--a ruther _stylish feller?In a bran-new green spring-wagon, with the wheels striped red and yeller:
And he whispered, as they driv?Tords the country, "Now we'll live!"--?And somepin' else_ she _laughed to hear, though both her eyes wuz dim, 'Bout "trustin' Love and Heav'n above_, sence Lide married _him!"
[Illustration: (WHEN LIDE MARRIED Him--TAILPIECE)]
HER HAIR
The beauty of her hair bewilders me--?Pouring adown the brow, its cloven tide?Swirling about the ears on either side?And storming around the neck tumultuously:?Or like the lights of old antiquity?Through mullioned windows, in cathedrals wide,?Spilled moltenly o'er figures deified?In chastest marble, nude of drapery.?And so I love it.--Either unconfined;?Or plaited in close braidings manifold;?Or smoothly drawn; or indolently twined?In careless knots whose coilings come unrolled?At any lightest kiss; or by the wind?Whipped out in flossy ravelings of gold.
[Illustration: (HER HAIR)]
[Illustration: (LAST NIGHT AND THIS--TITLE)]
LAST NIGHT--AND THIS
Last night--how deep the darkness was!?And well I knew its depths, because?I waded it from shore to shore,?Thinking to reach the light no more.
She would not even touch my hand.--?The winds rose and the cedars fanned?The moon out, and the stars fled back?In heaven and hid--and all was black!
But ah! To-night a summons came,?Signed with a teardrop for a name,--?For as I wondering kissed it, lo,?A line beneath it told me so.
And now the moon hangs over me?A disk of dazzling brilliancy,?And every star-tip stabs my sight?With splintered glitterings of light!
[Illustration: (LAST NIGHT AND THIS--TAILPIECE)]
[Illustration: (A DISCOURAGING MODEL--TITLE)]
A DISCOURAGING MODEL
Just the airiest, fairiest slip of a thing,?With a Gainsborough hat, like a butterfly's wing,?Tilted up at one side with the jauntiest air,?And a knot of red roses sown in under there
Where the shadows are lost in her hair.
Then a cameo face, carven in on a ground?Of that shadowy hair where the roses are wound;?And the gleam of a smile O as fair and as faint?And as sweet as the masters of old used to paint
Round the lips of their favorite saint!
And that lace at her throat--and the fluttering hands?Snowing there, with a grace that no art understands?The flakes of their touches--first fluttering at?The bow--then the roses--the hair--and then