The Galaxy/Volume 5/Number 1/With my Book

WITH MY BOOK

SHE waits, "to curiosity a prey,"
Wondering what gift will greet her festive day;
Fly, thou dull thing! and hail her with a song:
I have withheld my messenger too long;
For in those eyes the beautiful disdain
Methought I saw, made me misprize my strain.

But now that Christmas brings the bolder mind
I fling my fancy to December's wind,
And my caged bird unprison to the blast,
To soar, and light upon her hand at last.

Go greet my lady, not where flatterers throng,
But in her closet let her spell thy song;
And ask no thanks; for often with her look
She gave me many volumes for my book.

And she hath spoke not many times nor much
(Some feel a stroke what others call a touch);
But when she spoke, and when I listened first,
'Twas like an orchestra's harmonious burst;
And when she smiled, and I received her smile,
It seemed a sun-break out on Capris Isle.

T. W. Parsons.