| |
| I LENT my love a book one day; | |
| She brought it back; I laid it by: | |
| ’T was little either had to say,— | |
| She was so strange, and I so shy. | |
| |
| But yet we loved indifferent things,— | 5 |
| The sprouting buds, the birds in tune,— | |
| And Time stood still and wreathed his wings | |
| With rosy links from June to June. | |
| |
| For her, what task to dare or do? | |
| What peril tempt? what hardship bear? | 10 |
| But with her—ah! she never knew | |
| My heart and what was hidden there! | |
| |
| And she, with me, so cold and coy, | |
| Seemed a little maid bereft of sense; | |
| But in the crowd, all life and joy, | 15 |
| And full of blushful impudence. | |
| |
| She married,—well,—a woman needs | |
| A mate her life and love to share,— | |
| And little cares sprang up like weeds | |
| And played around her elbow-chair. | 20 |
| |
| And years rolled by,—but I, content, | |
| Trimmed my own lamp, and kept it bright, | |
| Till age’s touch my hair besprent | |
| With rays and gleams of silver light. | |
| |
| And then it chanced I took the book | 25 |
| Which she perused in days gone by; | |
| And as I read, such passion shook | |
| My soul,—I needs must curse or cry. | |
| |
| For, here and there, her love was writ, | |
| In old, half-faded pencil-signs, | 30 |
| As if she yielded—bit by bit— | |
| Her heart in dots and underlines. | |
| |
| Ah, silvered fool, too late you look! | |
| I know it; let me here record | |
| This maxim: Lend no girl a book | 35 |
| Unless you read it afterward! | |
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