No More Learning

Spread her wings!

And, though so near we're drawing, now,
'T is farther off--I know not how:--
I would not aught amiss had come
To babe or mother there, at home!
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

'T is but a seeming: swiftly rush
The seas, beneath. I hear the crush
Of foamy ridges 'gainst the prow.
Longing outspeeds the breeze, I know.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!

Patience, my mates! Though not this eve
We cast our anchor, yet believe,
If but the wind holds, short the run:
We'll sail in with to-morrow's sun.
O ye ho, boys. Spread her wings!
Fair winds, boys: send her home!
O ye ho!
FIRST GLANCE


A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; and laughing hair,--
So ruddy was its rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;

These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring;--
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.






BRIDE BROOK


Wide as the sky Time spreads his hand,
And blindly over us there blows
A swarm of years that fill the land,
Then fade, and are as fallen snows.

Behold, the flakes rush thick and fast;
Or are they years, that come between,--
When, peering back into the past,
I search the legendary scene?

Nay. Marshaled down the open coast,
Fearless of that low rampart's frown,
The winter's white-winged, footless host
Beleaguers ancient Saybrook town.

And when the settlers wake they stare
On woods half-buried, white and green,
A smothered world, an empty air:
Never had such deep drifts been seen!

But "Snow lies light upon my heart!
An thou," said merry Jonathan Rudd,
"Wilt wed me, winter shall depart,
And love like spring for us shall bud. "

"Nay, how," said Mary, "may that be?
No minister nor magistrate
Is here, to join us solemnly;
And snow-banks bar us, every gate. "

"Winthrop at Pequot Harbor lies,"
He laughed. And with the morrow's sun
He faced the deputy's dark eyes:
"How soon, sir, may the rite be done? "

"At Saybrook? There the power's not mine,"
Said he. "But at the brook we'll meet,
That ripples down the boundary line;
There you may wed, and Heaven shall see't. "

Forth went, next day, the bridal train
Through vistas dreamy with gray light.