Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/53

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For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear,

All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear.

I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe,

Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.

For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well

That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell.

And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar!

But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire.

And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise,

That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,

But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day;

And all things look’d half-dead, tho’ it was the middle of May.

Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been!

But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean.

And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late

I climb’d to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate.

The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale,

And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale.

All of a sudden he stopt: there past by the gate of the farm,

Willy,—he didn’t see me,—and Jenny hung on his arm.

Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how;

Ah, there’s no fool like the old one—it makes me angry now.

Willy stood up like a man, and look’d the thing that he meant;

Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtsey and went.

And I said, “Let us part: in a hundred years it’ll all be the same,

You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name.”

And he turn’d, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine:

“Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine.

And what do I came for Jane, let her speak of you well or ill;

But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy still.”

“Marry you, Willy!” said I, “but I needs must speak my mind,

I fear you will listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind.”

But he turn’d and claspt me in his arms, and answer’d, “No, love, no;”

Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago.

So Willy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown;

And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown.

But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born,

Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn.

That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death.

There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath.

I had not wept, little Anne, not since I had been a wife;

But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life.