MUST all the passion which I’ve strove
So long to hide be paid with scorn?
And must a bosom framed for love,
Be doomed a hopeless love to mourn?
And must thou still its homage spurn?
And must thou still my suit reject?
And be to me this cruel thorn?
Reflect upon the past, reflect!
A time there was and time shall pass
To me ere that forgotten be,
When side by side from tide to tide
We played and sported on the lea.
Then, then have I not chased the bee
From bloom to bloom—oft chased and caught,
And having drawn its sting in glee,
To thee the little body brought?
Then, when a bloom of rarer dyes
Into my busy fingers fell,
To whom was reached the lucky prize?
Can not thy recollection tell?
As oft away as summer went,
Who pulled with thee the haw, bright, brown
—Brown as thy own bright eyes—and bent
For thee the richest branches down?
With blooms I’ve graced thy yellow hair,
With berries filled thy lap—thy hand,
—That hand as alabaster fair—
Had every gift at my command.
Nay, tho’ to others dour, yet meek
I ever was to thee, and kind,
And when we played at hide and seek,
I hid where then would’st seek to find.
Upon the play-round still unmatched
Was I, unless with thee I played;
And then it seem’d to those who watched,
My failures were on purpose made.
As sure as did a race begin,
The palm was mine unless you joined;
Then strive who might the race to win
Did I with thee not lag behind?
The ball I knocked to others mocked
Their efforts to arrest its flight;
But when my ball to thee was knocked,
Did it not on thy lap alight?
None, up and down so well I bobbed,
To skip the rope with me would try,
Didst thou attempt? my skill was robbed;
If others skipped thee out—did I?
The smothered sneers of our compeers,
Would hint how acts like these were read,
What then? the while was not thy smile
Upon thy little lover shed?
Time vanished thus and childhood past;
But ere the lasses reach their teens,
Atween them and the lads a vast
Mysterious distance intervenes.
They seldom on the green appear
In careless sport and play; and if
They join the throng erect they wear
Their head and still their air is stiff—
They ail they know not what. And such
The change that on my lassie fell;
Then would she shrink my hand to touch,
And I have feared her touch as well.
Had I changed too? This I can tell,
That touch o’er me a spell would cast;
And did I pass her in the dell
With slow and snail-like pace I pass’d.
Her voice had lost its former ring;
Yet in that voice such power was flung,
I better liked to hear her sing
Than when of old to me she sung.
Her touch, her tone, her sight would gar
Me shake, and tho’ with all my might
I strove to please and please but her,
I ever blundered in her sight.
When by the hearth she sewing sat,
Did I to thread her needle try
Still, still my heart played pit-a-pat,
And still I missed the needle’s eye.
Then when I held to her the hank,
Such slips and knots occurred we heard
Aunt’s dreaded tongue go clink and clank,
Before the dancing end appeared.
“What ails the lass?” she often said;
“She’s sound asleep!” once said, and flew
And snatched and snapped the tangled thread;
Whilst I, I know not how, withdrew.
Away too fled those hours!—Alack!
They came and went like visions rare,
To mock the heart, delude, and wrack,
And leave the gazer in despair.
Ah, less—tho’ sun-illum’ed—less fair
The bubbles dancing down the burn:
And let them burst, they’ll re-appear
Ere those delightsome hours return.
Yet they may live in thought, and could
They live in Lily’s thought again;
Would she not change her bearing? would—
Would she not change her bitter strain?
Would she her Willy still disdain?
Would she continue thus to gall
And put me to this cruel pain?
Recall to mind the past, re-call!
Other works by Joseph Skipsey...
