ould a sunbeam pass
Through the cloud that was her hair.
Purple orchis lasteth long,
Primrose flowers are pale and clear;
O the maiden sang a song
It would do you good to hear!

Sad before her leaned the boy,
"Goldilocks that I love well,
Happy creature, fair and coy,
Think o' me, sweet Amabel."
Goldilocks she shook apart,
Looked with doubtful, doubtful eyes;
Like a blossom in her heart,
Opened out her first surprise.

As a gloriole sign o' grace,
Goldilocks, ah fall and flow,
On the blooming, childlike face,
Dimple, dimple, come and go.
Give her time; on grass and sky
Let her gaze if she be fain:
As they looked ere he drew nigh,
They will never look again.

Ah! the playtime she has known,
While her goldilocks grew long,
Is it like a nestling flown,
Childhood over like a song?
Yes, the boy may clear his brow,
Though she thinks to say him nay,
When she sighs, "I cannot now--
Come again some other day."

"Hold! there," he cried, half angry with himself;
"That ending goes amiss:" then turned again
To the old argument that we had held--
"Now look you!" said my brother, "You may talk
Till, weary of the talk, I answer 'Ay,
There's reason in your words;' and you may talk
Till I go on to say, 'This should be so;'
And you may talk till I shall further own
'It _is_ so; yes, I am a lucky dog!'
Yet not the less shall I next morning wake.
And with a natural and fervent sigh,
Such as you never heaved, I shall exclaim
'What an unlucky dog I am!'" And here
He broke into a laugh. "But as for you--
You! on all hands you have the best of me;
Men have not robbed _you_ of your birthright--work,
Nor ravaged in old days a peaceful field,
Nor wedded heiresses against their will,
Nor sinned, nor slaved, nor stooped, nor overreached,
That you might drone a useless life away
'Mid half a score of bleak and barren farms
And half a dozen bogs."
"O rare!" I cried;
"His wrongs go nigh to make him eloquent:
Now we behold how far bad actions reach!
Because five hundred years ago a Knight
Drove geese and beeves out from a Franklin's yard
Because three hundred years ago a squire--
Against her will, and for her fair estate--
Married a very ugly red-haired maid,
The blest inheritor of all their pelf,
While in the full enjoyment of the same,
Sighs on his own confession every day.
He cracks no egg without a moral sigh,
Nor eats of beef, but thinking on that wrong;
Then, ye