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| UNDER yonder beech-tree standing on the green sward, | |
| Couched with her arms behind her little head, | |
| Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom, | |
| Lies my young love sleeping in the shade. | |
| Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her! | 5 |
| Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow, | |
| Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me— | |
| Ah! would she hold me, and never let me go? | |
| |
| Shy as the squirrel, and wayward as the swallow; | |
| Swift as the swallow when, athwart the western flood, | 10 |
| Circleting the surface, he meets his mirrored winglets, | |
| Is that dear one in her maiden bud. | |
| Shy as the squirrel whose nest is in the pine-tops; | |
| Gentle—ah! that she were jealous—as the dove! | |
| Full of all the wildness of the woodland creatures, | 15 |
| Happy in herself is the maiden that I love! | |
| |
| What can have taught her distrust of all I tell her? | |
| Can she truly doubt me when looking on my brows? | |
| Nature never teaches distrust of tender love-tales; | |
| What can have taught her distrust of all my vows? | 20 |
| No, she does not doubt me! on a dewy eve-tide, | |
| Whispering together beneath the listening moon, | |
| I prayed till her cheek flushed, implored till she faltered— | |
| Fluttered to my bosom—ah! to fly away so soon! | |
| |
| When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, | 25 |
| Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, | |
| Often she thinks—were this wild thing wedded, | |
| I should have more love, and much less care. | |
| When her mother tends her before the bashful mirror, | |
| Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, | 30 |
| Often she thinks—were this wild thing wedded, | |
| I should lose but one for so many boys and girls. | |
| |
| Clambering roses peep into her chamber, | |
| Jasmine and woodbine breathe sweet, sweet; | |
| White-necked swallows, twittering of summer, | 35 |
| Fill her with balm and nested peace from head to feet. | |
| Ah! will the rose-bough see her lying lonely, | |
| When the petals fall and fierce bloom is on the leaves? | |
| Will the autumn garners see her still ungathered, | |
| When the fickle swallows forsake the weeping eaves? | 40 |
| |
| Comes a sudden question—should a strange hand pluck her! | |
| Oh! what an anguish smites me at the thought! | |
| Should some idle lordling bribe her mind with jewels! | |
| Can such beauty ever thus be bought? | |
| Sometimes the huntsmen, prancing down the valley, | 45 |
| Eye the village lasses, full of sprightly mirth; | |
| They see, as I see, mine is the fairest! | |
| Would she were older and could read my worth! | |
| |
| Are there not sweet maidens, if she still deny me? | |
| Show the bridal heavens but one bright star? | 50 |
| Wherefore thus then do I chase a shadow, | |
| Clattering one note like a brown eve-jar? | |
| So I rhyme and reason till she darts before me— | |
| Through the milky meadows from flower to flower she flies, | |
| Sunning her sweet palms to shade her dazzled eyelids | 55 |
| From the golden love that looks too eager in her eyes. | |
| |
| When at dawn she wakens, and her fair face gazes | |
| Out on the weather through the window panes, | |
| Beauteous she looks! like a white water-lily | |
| Bursting out of bud on the rippled river plains. | 60 |
| When from bed she rises, clothed from neck to ankle | |
| In her long night gown, sweet as boughs of May, | |
| Beauteous she looks! like a tall garden lily, | |
| Pure from the night and perfect for the day! | |
| |
| Happy, happy time, when the gray star twinkles | 65 |
| Over the fields all fresh with bloomy dew; | |
| When the cold-cheeked dawn grows ruddy up the twilight, | |
| And the gold sun wakes and weds her in the blue. | |
| Then when my darling tempts the early breezes, | |
| She the only star that dies not with the dark! | 70 |
| Powerless to speak all the ardor of my passion, | |
| I catch her little hand as we listen to the lark. | |
| |
| Shall the birds in vain then valentine their sweethearts? | |
| Season after season tell a fruitless tale? | |
| Will not the virgin listen to their voices? | 75 |
| Take the honeyed meaning, wear the bridal veil? | |
| Fears she frosts of winter, fears she the bare branches? | |
| Waits she the garlands of spring for her dower? | |
| Is she a nightingale that will not be nested | |
| Till the April woodland has built her bridal bower? | 80 |
| |
| Then come, merry April, with all thy birds and beauties! | |
| With thy crescent brows and thy flowery, showery glee; | |
| With thy budding leafage and fresh green pastures; | |
| And may thy lustrous crescent grow a honeymoon for me! | |
| Come, merry month of the cuckoo and the violet! | 85 |
| Come, weeping loveliness in all thy blue delight! | |
| Lo! the nest is ready, let me not languish longer! | |
| Bring her to my arms on the first May night. | |
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