By A Flower—by A Letter
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By a flower—By a letter—
By a nimble love—
If I weld the Rivet faster—
Final fast—above—
Never mind my breathless Anvil!
Never mind Repose!
Never mind the sooty faces
Tugging at the Forge!
This Is My Letter To The World,
This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,-
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
Going To Him! Happy Letter! Tell Him--
Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him--
Tell him the page I didn't write;
Tell him I only said the syntax,
And left the verb and the pronoun out.
Tell him just how the fingers hurried
Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow-
And then you wished you had eyes in your pages,
So you could see what moved them so.
'Tell him it wasn't a practised writer,
You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled;
You could hear the bodice tug, behind you,
As if it held but the might of a child;
You almost pitied it, you, it worked so.
Tell him--No, you may quibble there,
For it would split his heart to know it,
And then you and I were silenter.
'Tell him night finished before we finished
And the old clock kept neighing 'day!'
And you got sleepy and begged to be ended--
What could it hinder so, to say?
Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious
But if he ask where you are hid
Until to-morrow,--happy letter!
Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!'
