TO TWO YOUNG LADIES     

      There are, I've read, two troops of years, One troop is called the teens; They bring sweet gifts to little dears, Ediths and Geraldines. The others have no certain name, Though children of the sun, They come to wrinkled men, and claim Their treasures one by one. There is a hermit faint and dry, In things called rhymes he dabbles, And seventeen months have heard him sigh For Cissy and for Babbles. Once, when he seemed to be bedridden, These girls said, "Make us lines,"      He tried to court, as he was bidden, His vanished Valentines.       Now, three days late, yet ere they ask, He's meekly undertaken To do his sentimental task, Philandering, though forsaken. I pace my paradise, and long To show it off to Peris; They come not, but it can't be wrong To raise their ghosts by queries. Is Geraldine in flowing robes? Has Edith rippling curls? And do their ears prolong the lobes Weighed down with gold and pearls? And do they know the verbs of France? And do they play duetts? And do they blush when led to dance? And are they called coquettes? Oh, Cissy, if the heartless year Sets our brief loves asunder! Oh, Babbles, whom I daren't call dear! What can I do but wonder? I wonder what you're both become, Whether you're children still; I pause with fingers twain and thumb Closed on my faltering quill; I pause to think how I decay, And you win grace from Time. Perhaps ill-natured folks would say He's pausing for a rhyme. The sun, who drew us far apart, Might lessen my regrets, Would he but deign to use his art In painting your vignettes. Then though I groaned for losing half Of joys that memory traces, I could forego the talk, the laugh, In welcoming the faces. 

  

       A HOUSE AND A GIRL     

      The strawberry tree and the crimson thorn, And Fanny's myrtle and William's vine, And honey of bountiful jessamine, Are gone from the homestead where I was born. I gaze from my Grandfather's terrace wall, And then I bethink me how once I stept Through rooms where my Mother had blest me, and wept To yield them to strangers, and part with them all. My Father, like Matthew the publican, ceased Full early from hoarding with stainless mind, To Torrington only and home inclined, Where brotherhood, cousinhood, graced his feast. I meet his 

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