Mortimer Collins

1827-1876.

To F. C.

20th February 1875.

F

ast falls the snow, O lady mine,

Sprinkling the lawn with crystals fine,

But by the gods we won’t repine

While we ’re together,

We ’ll chat and rhyme and kiss and dine,

Defying weather.

So stir the fire and pour the wine,

And let those sea-green eyes divine

Pour their love-madness into mine:

I don’t care whether

’T is snow or sun or rain or shine

If we ’re together.

T

errace and lawn are white with frost,

Whose fretwork flowers upon the panes—

A mocking dream of summer, lost

’Mid winter’s icy chains.

White-hot, indoors, the great logs gleam,

Veiled by a flickering flame of blue:

I see my love as in a dream—

Her eyes are azure, too.

She puts her hair behind her ears

(Each little ear so like a shell),

Touches her ivory Queen, and fears

She is not playing well.

For me, I think of nothing less:

I think how those pure pearls become her—

And which is sweetest, winter chess

Or garden strolls in summer.

O linger, frost, upon the pane!

O faint blue flame, still softly rise!

O, dear one, thus with me remain,

That I may watch thine eyes!

Multum in Parvo.

A

little shadow makes the sunrise sad,

A little trouble checks the race of joy,

A little agony may drive men mad,

A little madness may the soul destroy:

Such is the world’s annoy.

Ay, and the rose is but a little flower

Which the red Queen of all the garden is:

And Love, which lasteth but a little hour,

A moment’s rapture and a moment’s kiss,

Is what no man would miss.

Violets at Home.

I.

O

happy buds of violet!

I give thee to my sweet, and she

Puts them where something sweeter yet

Must always be.

II.

White violets find whiter rest:

For fairest flowers how fair a fate!

For me remain, O fragrant breast!

Inviolate.

My Thrush.

A

ll through the sultry hours of June,

From morning blithe to golden noon,

And till the star of evening climbs

The gray-blue East, a world too soon,

There sings a Thrush amid the limes.

God’s poet, hid in foliage green,

Sings endless songs, himself unseen;

Right seldom come his silent times.

Linger, ye summer hours serene!

Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes.

May I not dream God sends thee there,

Thou mellow angel of the air,

Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes

With music’s soul, all praise and prayer?

Is that thy lesson in the limes?

Closer to God art thou than I:

His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly

Through silent æther’s sunnier climes.

Ah, never may thy music die!

Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!