Keep thee to-day, Free as an Arab Of thy beloved.' Cling with life to the maid; First vague shadow of surmise Flits across her bosom young, Free be she, fancy-free; Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, Nor the palest rose she flung From her summer diadem. Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive. TO ELLEN AT THE SOUTH THE green grass is bowing, The morning wind is in it; 'Tis a tune worth thy knowing, Though it change every minute. 'Tis a tune of the Spring; O'er ten thousand, thousand acres, Hark to the winning sound! They summon thee, dearest,— Saying, We have dressed for thee the ground, Nor yet thou appearest. "O hasten;' 't is our time, Ere yet the red Summer Scorch our delicate prime, Loved of bee, the tawny hummer. "O pride of thy race! Sad, in sooth, it were to ours, If our brief tribe miss thy face, We poor New England flowers. Fairest, choose the fairest members June's glories and September's "Thou shalt command us all, April's cowslip, summer's clover, To the gentian in the fall, Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover. "O come, then, quickly come! We are budding, we are blowing; And the wind that we perfume Sings a tune that's worth the knowing.' TO ELLEN AND Ellen, when the graybeard years Have brought us to life's evening hour, And all the crowded Past appears A tiny scene of sun and shower, Then, if I read the page aright Where Hope, the soothsayer, reads our lot, Thyself shalt own the page was bright, Well that we loved, woe had we not, When Mirth is dumb and Flattery's fled, And all but deathless Reason gone. TO EVA O FAIR and stately maid, whose eyes At the same torch that lighted mine; For so I must interpret still Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, Ah! let me blameless gaze upon LINES WRITTEN BY ELLEN LOUISA TUCKER SHORTLY BEFORE HER MARRIAGE TO MR. EMERSON LOVE scatters oil On Life's dark sea, Sweetens its toil Our helmsman he. Around him hover Odorous clouds; Under this cover His arrows he shrouds. The cloud was around me, Such sweetness crowned me, While Time shot by. No pain was within, Or a day without night. The shafts of the god Were tipped with down, |