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Or, Love in the Country
I. THE HILL blast comes howling through leaf-rifted trees | |
| That late were as harp-strings to each gentle breeze; | |
| The strangers and cousins and every one flown, | |
| While we sit happy-hearted—together—alone. | |
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II. Some are off to the mountain, and some to the fair, | 5 |
| The snow is on their cheek, on mine your black hair; | |
| Papa with his farming is busy to-day, | |
| And mamma ’s too good-natured to ramble this way. | |
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III. The girls are gone—are they not?—into town, | |
| To fetch bows and bonnets, perchance a beau, down; | 10 |
| Ah! tell them, dear Kate, ’t is not fair to coquette— | |
| Though you, you bold lassie, are fond of it yet! | |
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IV. You ’re not—do you say?—just remember last night, | |
| You gave Harry a rose, and you dubbed him your knight; | |
| Poor lad! if he loved you—but no, darling! no, | 15 |
| You ’re too thoughtful and good to fret any one so. | |
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V. The painters are raving of light and of shade, | |
| And Harry, the poet, of lake, hill, and glade; | |
| While the light of your eye and your soft wavy form | |
| Suit a proser like me, by the hearth bright and warm. | 20 |
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VI. The snow on those hills is uncommonly grand, | |
| But you know, Kate, it ’s not half so white as your hand, | |
| And say what you will of the gray Christmas sky, | |
| Still I slightly prefer my dark girl’s gray eye. | |
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VII. Be quiet, and sing me “The Bonny Cuckoo,” | 25 |
| For it bids us the summer and winter love through; | |
| And then I ’ll read out an old ballad that shows | |
| How Tyranny perished, and Liberty rose. | |
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VIII. My Kate! I ’m so happy, your voice whispers soft, | |
| And your cheek flushes wilder from kissing so oft, | 30 |
| For town or for country, for mountains or farms, | |
| What care I?—My darling’s entwined in my arms. | |
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