O lovely Mary Donnelly, your beauty's my distress: It's far too beauteous to be mine, but I'll never wish it less. The proudest place would fit your face, and I am poor and low; But blessings be about you, dear, wherever you may go! William Allingham [1824-1889] LOVE IN THE VALLEY UNDER yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward, Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won! When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, More love should I have, and much less care. When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, I should miss but one for many boys and girls. Heartless she is as the shadow in the meadows, Flying to the hills on a blue and breezy noon. Love in the Valley 557 Deals she an unkindness, 'tis but her rapid measure, Off a sunny border, she was made to bruise and bless. Lovely are the curves of the white owl sweeping Stepping down the hill with her fair companions, Happy happy time, when the white star hovers Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the darkness, Sunrays, leaning on our southern hills and lighting Ay, but shows the South-west a ripple-feathered bosom When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window Turns grave eyes craving light, released from dreams, Beautiful she looks, like a white water-lily Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams. When from bed she rises clothed from neck to ankle In her long nightgown sweet as boughs of May, Beautiful she looks, like a tall garden-lily Pure from the night, and splendid for the day. Mother of the dews, dark eye-lashed twilight, Cool as dew in twilight, the lark above the flowers. All the girls are out with their baskets for the primrose; Springs in her bosom for odors and for color, Covert and the nightingale; she knows not why. Kerchiefed head and chin she darts between her tulips, Streaming like a willow gray in arrowy rain: Some bend beaten cheek to gravel, and their angel She will be; she lifts them, and on she speeds again. Prim little scholars are the flowers of her garden, 'Trained to stand in rows, and asking if they please. I might love them well but for loving more the wild ones: O my wild ones! they tell me more than these. Love in the Valley You, my wild one, you tell of honied field-rose, Violet, blushing eglantine in life; and even as they, They by the wayside are earnest of your goodness, You are of life's, on the banks that line the way. 559 Peering at her chamber the white crowns the red rose, Yellow with birdfoot-trefoil are the grass-glades; This I may know: her dressing and undressing Such a change of light shows as when the skies in sport Shift from cloud to moonlight; or edging over thunder Slips a ray of sun; or sweeping into port White sails furl; or on the ocean borders White sails lean along the waves leaping green. Visions of her shower before me, but from eyesight Guarded she would be like the sun were she seen. Front door and back of the mossed old farmhouse Swarms, and the blackbird's mellow fluting notes Cool was the woodside; cool as her white dairy Keeping sweet the cream-pan; and there the boys from school, Cricketing below, rushed brown and red with sunshine; O the dark translucence of the deep-eyed cool! Spying from the farm, herself she fetched a pitcher Full of milk, and tilted for each in turn the beak. Then a little fellow, mouth up and on tiptoe, Said, "I will kiss you": she laughed and leaned her cheek. Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo. Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway Sometimes pipes a chaffinch; loose droops the blue. Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river, Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly. Nowhere is she seen; and if I see her nowhere, Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky. O the golden sheaf, the rustling treasure-armful! Nodding! O the girdle slack about the waist! Quick amid the wheat-ears: wound about the waist, Gathered, see these brides of Earth one blush of ripeness! O the nutbrown tresses nodding interlaced. Large and smoky red the sun's cold disk drops, Gossips count her faults; they scour a narrow chamber |