Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 21.djvu/13

1868.] A motion as of waving grain,

A music as of thrushes.

"The plaything of your summer sport,

The spells you weave around me,

You cannot at your will undo,

Nor leave me as you found me.

"You go as lightly as you came,

Your life is well without me;

What care you that these hills will close

Like prison-walls about me?

"No mood is mine to seek a wife,

Or daughter for my mother;

Who loves you loses in that love

All power to love another!

"I dare your pity or your scorn,

With pride your own exceeding;

I fling my heart into your lap

Without a word of pleading."

She looked up from the waving grass

So archly, yet so tender:

"And if I lend you mine," she said,

"Will you forgive the lender?

"Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;

And see you not, my farmer,

How weak and fond a woman waits

Behind this silken armor?

"I love you: on that love alone,

And not my worth, presuming,

Will you not trust for summer fruit

The tree in May-day blooming?"

Alone the hangbird overhead,

His hair-swung cradle straining,

Looked down to see love's miracle,—

The giving that is gaining.

And so the farmer found a wife,

His mother found a daughter;

There looks no happier home than hers

On pleasant Bearcamp Water.

Flowers spring to blossom where she walks

The careful ways of duty;

Our hard, stiff lines of life with her

Are flowing curves of beauty.