A Garden of Girls

Enter a procession of charming girls; wee ones like Nikolina and Jessie, others, like Peggy, just bordering on their teens. Some are so saintly we can almost see the halos above their lovely heads-like Mrs. Browning's human angel in the first poem, or like Shakespeare's Silvia, who excels each mortal thing; others are just happy children, like Little Bell.

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The poets, as you will see, have delighted to paint the beauties of this rosebud garden. There is sweet Phyllis, the little dairymaid, whose hand seemed milk, in milk it was so white; Annie Laurie, with her brow like the snowdrift and her voice like wind in summer sighing; merry Margaret, like midsummer flower; but you will note that in all of them sunny hair and dewy eyes are not where the beauty lies. Love deep and kind " leaves good gifts behind, with Bell and with Mally, too, who is rare and fair and every way complete, and who is also modest and discreet. On the other hand, Burns does not describe Nannie by so much as a single word, but it is easy to conjure up her picture, so eloquently he paints the dreariness of the world "when Nannie's awa'."

Will you not add to this garden of girls others whom you would like to see blooming beside them? Remember, it is a rosebud garden, and the new-comers must be not only beautiful, but sweet and fragrant with pretty, womanly virtues.

"She walks-the lady of my delight

A shepherdess of sheep.

Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
She guards them from the steep.

She feeds them on the fragrant height,

And folds them in for sleep."

VIII

A GARDEN OF GIRLS

A Portrait

"One Name is Elizabeth."—JONSON.

I WILL paint her as I see her:

Ten times have the lilies blown,
Since she looked upon the sun.

And her face is lily-clear-
Lily-shaped, and drooped in duty
To the law of its own beauty.

Oval cheeks encolored faintly,
Which a trail of golden hair
Keeps from fading off to air:

And a forehead fair and saintly,
Which two blue eyes undershine,
Like meek prayers before a shrine.

Face and figure of a child,

Though too calm, you think, and tender, For the childhood you would lend her.

4 Garden of Girls

Yet child-simple, undefiled,
Frank, obedient,―waiting still
On the turnings of your will.

Moving light, as all young things
As young birds, or early wheat
When the wind blows over it.

Only free from flutterings

Of loud mirth that scorneth measure
Taking love for her chief pleasure:

Choosing pleasures (for the rest)
Which come softly-just as she,
When she nestles at your knee.

Quiet talk she liketh best,
In a bower of gentle looks,-
Watering flowers, or reading books.

And her voice, it murmurs lowly,
As a silver stream may run,
Which yet feels, you feel, the sun.

And her smile, it seems half holy,
As if drawn from thoughts more fair
Than our common jestings are.

And if any poet knew her,
He would sing of her with falls
Used in lovely madrigals.