And where the springy turf was gay
With thyme and balm and many a spray
Of wild roses, you tempted me

With strawberries!

A shadowy sail, silent and grey,
Stole like a ghost across the bay;

But none could hear me ask my fee,

And none could know what came to be. Can sweethearts all their thirst allay

With strawberries?

W. E. Henley.

JENNY KISSED ME

JENNY kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in:

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me, Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jenny kissed me.

L. Hunt.

POEMS IN A MINOR KEY

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her-
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse,

Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces,

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

C. Lamb.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

A. Tennyson.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

OFT in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me:

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm'd and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so link'd together
I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

T. Moore.

PAST AND PRESENT

I REMEMBER, I remember

The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember

The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups—
Those flowers made of light!

The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birth-day,—
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool

The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember

The fir trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from Heaven Than when I was a boy.

T. Hood.

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

WHEN the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead.— When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not;

When the lips have spoken,

Loved accents are soon forgot.