FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66  
67   68   69   70   >>  
t peace, A rest beyond all earthly ease, 'Neath the white shadow of the throne-- Low nest forever overshone By tenderest love, our Lord's dear will; Oh, heart, be still--be still! SQUIRE PERCY'S PRIDE. The Squire was none of your common men Whose ancestors nobody knows, But visible was his lineage In the lines of his Roman nose, That turned in the true patrician curve-- In the curl of his princely lips, In his slightly insolent eyelids, In his pointed finger-tips. Very erect and grand looked the Squire As he walked o'er his broad estate, For he felt that the earth was honored In bearing his honorable weight; Proudly he strolled through his wooded park Deer-haunted and gloomily grand, Or gazed from his pillared porticoes On his far-outlying land. In a tiny whitewashed cottage, Half-covered with roses wild, His cheerful-faced old gardener dwelt Alone with his motherless child; The Squire owned the very floor he trod, The grass in his garden lot, The poor man had only this one little lamb Yet he envied the rich man not. Poor was the gardener, yet rich withal In this priceless pearl of a girl, So perfect a form, so faultless a face Never brightened the halls of an Earl; Her eyes were two fathomless stars of light, And they shone on the Squire day by day, Till their warm and perilous splendor So melted his pride away, That he fain would have taken this pretty pet lamb To dwell in his stately fold, To fetter it fast with a jeweled chain, And cage it with bars of gold; But this coy little lamb loved its freedom, Not so free was she, though, to be true, But, oh, the dainty and shy little lamb Well her master's voice she knew. 'Twas vain for the Squire the story to tell Of his riches and high descent, As it fell into one rosy shell of an ear Out of its mate it went; How one grim old ancestor into the land With William the Conqueror came, She thought, the sweet, of a conqueror She knew with that very name. So in this tender conflict The great man was forced to yield To the handsome, sunburnt ploughman Who sowed and reaped in his field; For vainly he poured out his glittering gifts, Vainly he plead and besought, Her heart was a tender and soft little heart, But it was not a heart to be bought. So strange a thing I warrant you Happens not every day, That the pride that had thriven for centuries One slight little maiden s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66  
67   68   69   70   >>  



Top keywords:
Squire
 

gardener

 
tender
 
jeweled
 

dainty

 

freedom

 

fathomless

 

perilous

 

pretty

 
stately

melted

 

splendor

 
fetter
 
poured
 
glittering
 

Vainly

 
vainly
 
sunburnt
 

handsome

 

ploughman


reaped

 

besought

 

thriven

 

centuries

 

maiden

 
slight
 
Happens
 

strange

 

bought

 

warrant


forced
 
descent
 

riches

 

master

 
thought
 
conqueror
 

conflict

 

Conqueror

 

ancestor

 
William

insolent

 

slightly

 

eyelids

 
pointed
 

finger

 
princely
 

turned

 

patrician

 

estate

 

honored