Produced by Mardi Desjardins
by
"Josiah Allen's Wife,"
(Marietta Holley)
When I wrote many of these verses I was much younger than I am now,and the "sweetest eyes in the world" would brighten over them,through the reader's love for me. I dedicate them to her memory—the memory ofMY MOTHER.
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All through my busy years of prose writing I have occasionallyjotted down idle thoughts in rhyme. Imagining ideal scenes,ideal characters, and then, as is the way, I suppose, with moreambitious poets, trying to put myself inside the personalitiesI have invoked, trying to feel as they would be likely to, speakthe words I fancied they would say.
The many faults of my verses I can see only too well; their merits,if they have any, I leave with the public—which has always beenso kind to me—to discover.
And half-hopefully, half-fearfully, I send out the little crafton the wide sea strewn with so many wrecks. But thinking it mustbe safer from adverse winds because it carries so low a sail, andwill cruise along so close to the shore and not try to sail outin the deep waters.
And so I bid the dear little wanderer (dear to me), God-speed, andbon voyage.
Marietta Holley.
New York, June, 1887.
It is not the lark's clear tone
Cleaving the morning air with a soaring cry,
Nor the nightingale's dulcet melody all the balmy night—
Not these alone
Make the sweet sounds of summer;
But the drone of beetle and bee, the murmurous hum of the fly
And the chirp of the cricket hidden out of sight—
These help to make the summer.
Not roses redly blown,
Nor golden lilies, lighting the dusky meads,
Nor proud imperial pansies, nor queen-cups quaint and rare—
Not these alone
Make the sweet sights of summer
But the countless forest leaves, the myriad wayside weeds
And slender grasses, springing up everywhere—
These help to make the summer.
One heaven bends above;
The lowliest head ofttimes has sweetest rest;
O'er song-bird in the pine, and bee in the ivy low,
Is the same love, it is all God's summer;
Well pleased is He if we patiently do our best,
So hum little bee, and low green grasses grow,
You help to make the summer.