The over-vigilant mamma
Can never let her be:
She must play this march for another,
And sing that song for me.
I wonder if she remembers
The song I made for her:
"_The hopes of love are frailer
Than lines of gossamer_":
Made when we strolled together
Through fields of happy June,
And our hearts kept time together,
With birds and brooks in tune,--
And I was so glad of loving,
That I must mimic grief,
And, trusting in love forever,
Must fable unbelief.
I did not hear the prelude,--
I was thinking of these old things.
She is fairer and wiser and older
Than----What is it she sings?
"_The hopes of love are frailer
Than lines of gossamer_."
Alas! the bitter wisdom
Of the song I made for her!
V.
All the long August afternoon,
The little drowsy stream
Whispers a melancholy tune,
As if it dreamed of June
And whispered in its dream.
The thistles show beyond the brook
Dust on their down and bloom,
And out of many a weed-grown nook
The aster-flowers look
With eyes of tender gloom.
The silent orchard aisles are sweet
With smell of ripening fruit.
Through the sere grass, in shy retreat,
Flatter, at coming feet,
The robins strange and mute.
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