Back Aa

Heart Songs

Close

<h2>Eve</h2> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> SHE is an ideal daughter—mind you, friend, You must not from my words infer she has No faults. No angel is my Eve, not she, But just a faulty fair thing, sweet of face, And warm of heart, and with a tender flame In her true eyes so innocent of guile, With laughter on her lips, and loving words, With something in each mood to draw One’s soul the closer to her. Wondrous big Her nature is—she’s something more than kind. </div> <div class="stanza"> If sorrow touches me in any way It is to her I turn for comforting; If sickness stretches me upon my bed, And steals my strength and spirits quite away, I want her near me with her slim cool hands, Her zeal to nurse me back to health again, Her smoothing of the pillows underneath My head, that I may rest the easier; To her this world is such a pretty place She likes no one to leave it ere he must. </div> <div class="stanza"> So plies her remedies with wondrous skill, And talks the while of pleasant homely things—{75} The tasks that tarry for my getting well, The garden showing plainly my neglect, The swarming bees, the apple trees in bloom, The lonesome collie blinking in the sun, The filly being broken for the plough, My southdown sheep, the green of barley fields, My neighbors, and the daily wish that I Might soon be out among them as of old. </div> <div class="stanza"> This is the sort of nurse a sick man needs, Not one who is forever breathing sighs, And talking of the emptiness of life, And urging one to wean his thoughts from earth, Nor care a jot for life, since it is such An empty, barren, disappointing thing. Life! why, ’tis God’s good gift to each of us, And some, I think, show much ingratitude By slurring it forever with the wish That they were rid of it for good and all. </div> <div class="stanza"> Now, you have mortgages, and deeds, and bonds, You have a lordly mansion of your own, While I—I have a big old-fashioned house, And a few fields. You sometimes look at me And sigh to think I am not better off{76} In this world’s goods. Old friend I like you well And would not have you waste your pity so; Why, man, I’m all amazed that you are not Quite envious of me, since I have got— What you do lack—a daughter of my own. </div> <div class="stanza"> It makes a man feel rich to have a girl Like mine to pet and make ado of him, To come about him with her tender ways, And cozening, and pretty tricks of speech, To cry a little when he goes away, To watch for his return with eager eyes, To come to him with laughter on her lips— Ay, and sometimes a pout that shows itself But to be kissed away—to keep his heart From growing old with all the years that pass. </div> <div class="stanza"> I would not give this little Eve of mine For twenty times her weight in solid gold, ’Tis a good world—you do not wonder now That I’m so jolly and content alway; You’re sighing like a furnace—’tis too bad! I wish, old friend, you were as rich as I— With such a glad young thing to come and lay Her rosy cheek to yours when you are sad! The man who has no daughter of his own Is such a pauper, I could cry for him. </div> </div></div> {77} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2