Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By GertrudeHall

1521 Mrs. Golightly

THE TIME is come to speak, I think:

For on the square I met

My beauteous widow, fresh and pink,

Her black gown touched at every brink

With tender violet;

And at her throat the white crêpe lisse

Spoke, in a fluffy bow,

Of woe that should perhaps ne’er cease—

(Peace to thy shade, Golightly, peace!)

Yet mitigated woe.

In her soft eye, that used to scan

The ground, nor seem to see,

The hazel legend sweetly ran,

“I could not wholly hate a man

For quite adoring me.”

And when she drew her ’kerchief fine,

A hint of heliotrope

Its snow edged with an inky line

Exhaled,—from which scent you divine

Through old regrets new hope.

And then her step, so soft and slow,

She scarcely seemed to lift

From off the sward her widowed toe,—

One year, one little year ago!—

So soft yet, yet so swift;

Then, too, her blush, her side glance coy,

Tell me in easy Greek

(I wonder could her little boy

Prove source of serious annoy?)

The time has come to speak.