• Author: Unknown
• Editor:
• Newspaper: The Umpire volume V
• Page Number:
• Date: 7 17 1918
• Tags:
• poetry

TO A PORTRAIT OF MISS C______.

Dear little lady, had I tongue to flatter, A rosy future I would paint for you; With lovers mad for you as any hatter, Or as March hare, too. Sighing all the night long windows Singing of your beauty to the stars: I will only say, I’ve seen your likeness, And—I curse the bars.

I would be some score of years the younger, Walk with you a—down some April lane; Tho as courtier I was ever bungler, I would try again. Haply when the fire fly lamps were litten, And the dew lay heavy on the grass; You would watch with me the gold stars mirrored, In the water’s glass.

I would speak no word of love, or longing; I, who scarce would dare to take your hand; Stainless as the lilies that are thronging, All the river’s strand. I would play the pale, despairing lover, Worshiping, yet knowing it but vain; As the moths around the night-lamps hover, Careless of the flame:

So I’d hang upon your lightest saying; Dance, and grimace, but to see you smile, Glad to be the comrade of your playing, For a little while. Little lady, ’tis but idle dreaming, I shall ne’er see but your pictured face: Yet to me that one brief moment’s seeming, Gives new heart of grace.