He digs the flowers, green, red, and blue, Nor wishes to be spoken to.
He digs the flowers and cuts the hay, And never seems to want to play.
Silly gardener! summer goes, And winter comes with pinching toes, When in the garden bare and brown You must lay your barrow down.
Well now, and while the summer stays, To profit by these garden days, O how much wiser you would be To play at Indian wars with me!
VIII
HISTORICAL a.s.sOCIATIONS
DEAR Uncle Jim, this garden ground That now you smoke your pipe around, Has seen immortal actions done And valiant battles lost and won.
Here we had best on tip-toe tread, While I for safety march ahead, For this is that enchanted ground Where all who loiter slumber sound.
Here is the sea, here is the sand, Here is simple Shepherd"s Land, Here are the fairy hollyhocks, And there are Ali Baba"s rocks.
But yonder, see! apart and high, Frozen Siberia lies; where I, With Robert Bruce and William Tell, Was bound by an enchanter"s spell.
There, then, awhile in chains we lay, In wintry dungeons, far from day; But ris"n at length, with might and main, Our iron fetters burst in twain.
Then all the horns were blown in town; And to the ramparts clanging down, All the giants leaped to horse And charged behind us through the gorse.
On we rode, the others and I, Over the mountains blue, and by The Silver River, the sounding sea, And the robber woods of Tartary.
A thousand miles we galloped fast, And down the witches" lane we pa.s.sed, And rode amain, with brandished sword, Up to the middle, through the ford.
Last we drew rein--a weary three-- Upon the lawn, in time for tea, And from our steeds alighted down Before the gates of Babylon.
ENVOYS
I
TO WILLIE AND HENRIETTA
If two may read aright These rhymes of old delight And house and garden play, You two, my cousins, and you only, may.
You in a garden green With me were king and queen, Were hunter, soldier, tar, And all the thousand things that children are.
Now in the elders" seat We rest with quiet feet, And from the window-bay We watch the children, our successors, play.
"Time was," the golden head Irrevocably said; But time which none can bind, While flowing fast away, leaves love behind.
II
TO MY MOTHER
YOU too, my mother, read my rhymes For love of unforgotten times, And you may chance to hear once more The little feet along the floor.
III
TO AUNTIE
_CHIEF of our aunts_--not only I, But all your dozen of nurslings cry-- _What did the other children do?_ _And what were childhood, wanting you?_
IV
TO MINNIE
THE red room with the giant bed Where none but elders laid their head; The little room where you and I Did for awhile together lie And, simple suitor, I your hand In decent marriage did demand; The great day nursery, best of all, With pictures pasted on the wall And leaves upon the blind-- A pleasant room wherein to wake And hear the leafy garden shake And rustle in the wind-- And pleasant there to lie in bed And see the pictures overhead-- The wars about Sebastopol, The grinning guns along the wall, The daring escalade, The plunging ships, the bleating sheep, The happy children ankle-deep And laughing as they wade: All these are vanished clean away, And the old manse is changed today; It wears an altered face And shields a stranger race.
The river, on from mill to mill, Flows past our childhood"s garden still; But ah! we children never more Shall watch it from the water-door!
Below the yew--it still is there-- Our phantom voices haunt the air As we were still at play, And I can hear them call and say: "_How far is it to Babylon?_"
Ah, far enough, my dear, Far, far enough from here-- Yet you have farther gone!
"_Can I get there by candlelight?_"
So goes the old refrain.
I do not know--perchance you might-- But only, children, hear it right, Ah, never to return again!
The eternal dawn, beyond a doubt, Shall break on hill and plain, And put all stars and candles out, Ere we be young again.
To you in distant India, these I send across the seas, Nor count it far across.
For which of us forgets The Indian cabinets, The bones of antelope, the wings of albatross, The pied and painted birds and beans, The junks and bangles, beads and screens, The G.o.ds and sacred bells, And the loud-humming, twisted sh.e.l.ls?
The level of the parlour floor Was honest, homely, Scottish sh.o.r.e; But when we climbed upon a chair, Behold the gorgeous East was there!
Be this a fable; and behold Me in the parlour as of old, And Minnie just above me set In the quaint Indian cabinet!
Smiling and kind, you grace a shelf Too high for me to reach myself.
Reach down a hand, my dear, and take These rhymes for old acquaintance" sake.