When I look at your sweet letter
I feel it my pleasure to say
It couldn’t be nicer or better.
It is Dorothy pure and simple
From the tips of her bounding feet
To the neat of each smiling dimple
That makes her face so sweet.
O, many a time I’ve bless’d you
For the love of your blithe young heart;
And my far-away thoughts caressed you
Till we seemed less wide apart.
Do you mind, while the lingering people
Were saying farewells at the door,
How you came to the gray old cripple
To kiss him “good by” once more?
That action, tender and gracious,
His heart will never forget,
Till out of the “firmament spacious”
The very last moon has set.
Perhaps I may never behold you
Till we meet in the meadows above
But my old, glad heart shall fold you
In the arms of a fatherly love!
You modestly hint in your letter
A little shade nice and better
Than the “Truly” Miss Dorothy G
“And can I” – you say, “if I try sir
Be ever as worthy as she?”
Oh yes! And nicer, and nicer
If you aim at the best you see!
There’s nothing too high for the climber
Who is steadily looking above;
There’s nothing too sweet for the rhymer
Whose prompters are Beauty and Love.
The fancy within you, that marries
Your dream to the visible act,
Can revel and riot with fairies
Still keeping to truth in the act.
For think of the infinite uses
The Little Folk serve in the world;
How they run with the colors and juices
Into lilies and roses unfurled;
How they dance on the sky’s cloudy arches
In garments of red, bleu, and gold
And watching their frolicsome marches,
“A Rainbow!” – Men say we behold.
And see how the merry wee builders
Red, atom by atom, the corn;
And their millions of exquisite gilders
Pint the splendors of evening and morn!
You may guess, if you walk in the country,
How they delve in the dark underground,
Braiding close, with the roots of some on tree
The roots of another inwound.
The little illicit distillers,
They mix us a sassafras wine,
Or grind us, like diligent millers,
The gold pollen-meal of the pine.
O Dorothy dear, they are busy,
All round us, and work the whole time!
I guess it would make your head dizzy
To tell all they do, in my rhyme.
My aristocrat toes have grown humble
And grudgingly let me go out,
‘Tis at my own risk if I tumble,
And not to be laid to the gout.
Thus far “the grip” has been kindly
And let me entirely alone;
Though he lashes around him blindly
And pierces through flesh and bone
It found its way to Seaconnet
And pounced on Bessie and George:
Neither Guinther nor Lizzie could shun it,
For It smote like a smith at his forge.
No: I never saw Jefferson Winkle,
Nor looked upon Rip Van Jose,
But I guess your eyes did twinkle
When he came from the mountains so!
And now good by, Sweet Dreamer!
My darling, My Dorothy Gray;
May the sawn-light’s golden streamer
Bring my love to you every day!
