Two Small Poems [pp. 305-306]

1856.1
TWO SMALL POEMS.
BY THOMIAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
I.
MUCHIACHIITA VIA.
[Spanish.]
Au, muchachita de Madrid,
I know not where your power is hild;
In touch or tone, or if it lies
Within the midnight of your eyes!
I know not if those lips confess
Your magic is your tenderness;
Or if in straggling braids of hair
You tangle hearts and keep them there!
Or if you make your conquests, Sweet,
By showing of those dainty feet!
That I may pass the dangerous snare
Of feet, and lips, and eyes, and hair,
Tell me in which your power is hid,
Mi muchachita de Madrid!
II.
LES SOUVENIRS.
And then the Lover.
As You Like It.
IN an ancient oaken chest Old?-An hundred years and more Lie a sea-shell and a flower,
Could you buy them, Kooh-i-noor?
Lies a tiny tress of hair,
Silken-soft, and neatly tied
With a ribbon white as snow,
White as roses for a bride.
Shell of ivory, agate-veined,
Spire and whorl, from sea-depths green,
Tress of hair and faded flower Tell me, gentles, what they mean!
When I hear the little gods
Whispering in this shell to me,
I am walking, Madge and I,
Through the clover to the Sea!
VoL. XX1II-20
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