And down I went to fetch my bride: I knew you could not look but well; And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, I watch'd the little flutterings, The doubt my mother would not see; heart. Ah, well-but sing the foolish song Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, 152 160 While those full chestnuts whisper by. 168 It the miller's daughter, And she is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the jewel That trembles in her ear: For hid in ringlets day and night, I'd touch her neck so warm and white. 174 And I would be the girdle About her dainty, dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest: And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight. 180 And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise With her laughter or her sighs, I scarce should be unclasp'd at night. 186 A trifle, sweet! which true love spells~- His light upon the letter dwells, And makes me talk too much in age. And now those vivid hours are gone, Half-anger'd with my happy lot, Love that hath us in the net, Many suns arise and set. Many a chance the years beget, Love the gift is Love the debt. Even so, 194 202 208 Love is hurt with jar and fret. What is love? for we forget: 214 Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, Look thro' my very soul with thine! Yet tears they shed: they had their part And left a want unknown before; 222 230 With farther lookings on. The kiss, With blessings beyond hope or thought, Arise, and let us wander forth, To yon old mill across the wolds; 246 Lord Tennyson. THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil, My loved, my honored, much-respected friend, The lowly train in life's sequestered scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways; What Aiken in a cottage would have been; Ah! though his worth unknown, far happier there. I ween. November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; The shortening winter-day is near a close; 9 The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; This night his weekly moil is at an end,— Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. 18 At length his lonely cot appears in view, To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise and His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily, His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie wifie's The lisping infant prattling on his knee, Does a' his weary kiaugh and cares beguile, And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. Belyve the elder bairns come drapping in, rin A cannie errand to a neebor town; Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e 27 |