( OF JAMES LOWELL PUTNAM, IN ATHENÆUM GALLERY .)

A CALM , sweet face, with earnest eyes
And thoughtful brow, full-arched above it,
A mouth whose graveness won surprise,
Whose tender sweetness made one love it;
A face that told how souls aspire
That look beyond to-day's revealing;
A boy, with all of manhood's fire, —
A man, with all of boyhood's feeling.

They told his life, his honored name,

With the robin for poet-laureate,
And the mayflowers for her train,
And her innocence for her robe of state,
The baby began her reign.

The pretty head with its curly crown
Knows nothing of royal woes;
For love is softer than eider-down,
And yieldeth her sweet repose.

There are loyal and loving hearts alone
In the wee one's fair domain;
And they make the robin's song their own,
For he singeth, " Vive la Reine! "

THIS is the baby I love!
The baby that cannot talk;
The baby that cannot walk;
The baby that just begins to creep;
The baby that's cuddled and rocked to sleep;
Oh, this is the baby I love!

This is the baby I love!
The baby that's never cross;
The baby papa can toss;
The baby that crows when held aloft;
The baby that's rosy and round and soft!
Oh, this is the baby I love!

This is the baby I love!
The baby that laughs when I peep
To see is it still asleep;

LOVE SUPREME

You ask what love is? It is this, my own:
To hold all women pure because of you,
Yet give heart reverence unto you alone,
And for your sake be steadfast, brave, and true.

What a dainty life the milkmaid leads!
When over the flowery meads
She dabbles in the dew,
And sings to her cow;
And feels not the pain
Of love or disdain:
She sleeps in the night though she toils in the day,
And merrily passeth her time away.

What a dainty life the milkmaid leads!
When over the flowery meads
She dabbles in the dew,
And sings to her cow;
And feels not the pain
Of love or disdain:
She sleeps in the night though she toils in the day,
And merrily passeth her time away.

I will confesse
With Cheerfulnesse,
Love is a thing so likes me,
That let her lay
On me all day,
Ile kiss the hand that strikes me.

I will not, I,
Now blubb'ring, cry,
It (Ah!) too late repents me,
That I did fall
To love at all,
Since love so much contents me.

No, no, Ile be
In fetters free;
While others they sit wringing
Their hands for paine;
Ile entertaine
The wounds of love with singing.

With Flowers and Wine,

I PRAY thee leave, love me no more,
Call home the Heart you gave me,
I but in vaine that Saint adore,
That can, but will not save me:
These poore halfe kisses kill me quite;
Was ever man thus served?
Amidst an Ocean of Delight,
For Pleasure to be sterved.

Shew me no more those Snowie Brests
With Azure Riverets branched,
Where whilst mine Eye with Plentie feasts,
Yet is my Thirst not stanched.
O Tantalus , thy Paines ne'er tell,
By me thou art prevented;
'Tis nothing to be plagu'd in Hell,

On Fridays he'd open a can of Jax
After coming home from the mill,
& ask me to write a letter to my mother
Who sent postcards of desert flowers
Taller than men. He would beg,
Promising to never beat her
Again. Somehow I was happy
She had gone, & sometimes wanted
To slip in a reminder, how Mary Lou
Williams' " Polka Dots & Moonbeams "
Never made the swelling go down.
His carpenter's apron always bulged
With old nails, a claw hammer
Looped at his side & extension cords
Coiled around his feet.

1

Honest lover whosoever,
If in all thy love there ever
Was one wav'ring thought, if thy flame
Were not still even, still the same:
Know this,
Thou lov'st amiss;
And, to love true,
Thou must begin again, and love anew.

2

If when she appears i' th' room,
Thou dost not quake, and are struck dumb,
And, in striving this to cover,
Dost not speak thy words twice over:
Know this,
Thou lov'st amiss;

Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets within your pipe, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say I'm growing old — but add,
G. M. Trevelyan wanted me to deliver a Clark Lecture.

Yours sincerely, and with deep regret,