| |
| ONCE, on a golden afternoon, | |
| With radiant faces and hearts in tune, | |
| Two fond lovers in dreaming mood | |
| Threaded a rural solitude. | |
| Wholly happy, they only knew | 5 |
| That the earth was bright and the sky was blue, | |
| That light and beauty and joy and song | |
| Charmed the way as they passed along: | |
| The air was fragrant with woodland scents; | |
| The squirrel frisked on the roadside fence; | 10 |
| And hovering near them, “Chee, chee, chink?” | |
| Queried the curious bobolink, | |
| Pausing and peering with sidelong head, | |
| As saucily questioning all they said; | |
| While the ox-eye danced on its slender stem, | 15 |
| And all glad nature rejoiced with them. | |
| Over the odorous fields were strown | |
| Wilting windrows of grass new-mown, | |
| And rosy billows of clover bloom | |
| Surged in the sunshine and breathed perfume. | 20 |
| Swinging low on a slender limb, | |
| The sparrow warbled his wedding hymn, | |
| And, balancing on a blackberry-brier, | |
| The bobolink sung with his heart on fire,— | |
| “Chink? If you wish to kiss her, do! | 25 |
| Do it, do it! You coward, you! | |
| Kiss her! Kiss, kiss her! Who will see? | |
| Only we three! we three! we three!” | |
| Under garlands of drooping vines, | |
| Through dim vistas of sweet-breathed pines, | 30 |
| Past wide meadow-fields, lately mowed, | |
| Wandered the indolent country road. | |
| The lovers followed it, listening still, | |
| And, loitering slowly, as lovers will, | |
| Entered a low-roofed bridge that lay, | 35 |
| Dusky and cool, in their pleasant way. | |
| Under its arch a smooth, brown stream | |
| Silently glided, with glint and gleam, | |
| Shaded by graceful elms that spread | |
| Their verdurous canopy overhead,— | 40 |
| The stream so narrow, the boughs so wide, | |
| They met and mingled across the tide. | |
| Alders loved it, and seemed to keep | |
| Patient watch as it lay asleep, | |
| Mirroring clearly the trees and sky | 45 |
| And the flitting form of the dragon-fly, | |
| Save where the swift-winged swallow played | |
| In and out in the sun and shade, | |
| And darting and circling in merry chase, | |
| Dipped and dimpled its clear dark face. | 50 |
| |
| Fluttering lightly from brink to brink | |
| Followed the garrulous bobolink, | |
| Rallying loudly, with mirthful din, | |
| The pair who lingered unseen within. | |
| And when from the friendly bridge at last | 55 |
| Into the road beyond they passed, | |
| Again beside them the tempter went, | |
| Keeping the thread of his argument:— | |
| “Kiss her! kiss her! chink-a-chee-chee! | |
| I ’ll not mention it! Don’t mind me! | 60 |
| I ’ll be sentinel—I can see | |
| All around from this tall birch-tree!” | |
| But ah! they noted—nor deemed it strange— | |
| In his rollicking chorus a trifling change: | |
| “Do it! do it!” with might and main | 65 |
| Warbled the telltale—“Do it again!” | |
| |
