My Dark-Eyed Pet

Brownie the Midget has midnight hair
     And eyes so darkly dyed
We call them black, but her cheeks are fair
With a spot in each like a ripened pear
     On its mellower, sunny side.

The delicate oval of her face
For the chin’s curve turning short,
Leaves there a dimple to mark the place,
Like the little whirl where the ripples close
     Around each other in sport.

If I were a Robin those lips seem
     Two cherries of tempting hue
But now,—ah me! there’s nothing I deem
So ruddy and sweet, in berry or gleam
     Of a rose-bud breaking through.

And her kisses, ah! the dainty thing!
     She’ll give them a touch as light
As the bounding tip of a swallow’s wing,
Then suddenly they return and cling
     While the plump hands hold me tight.

Her eyes are full of innocent fun
     As a petted kitten at play;
They kindle with flee, and overrun
With mirth and tenderness mixed in one
     And a ?? all obey/

Her supple limbs are as strong and lithe
     As her fibres were spiral steel.
And the heart they bound with is as blithe
As Bobolink when the whetted scythe
     Is making the meadows reel.

Sweetest of all are her serious moods
     When the talks with all her mates
The lamb, the squirrel, the birds in the woods
The hazle-nuts in their quaint green hoods
     And the “weaves” on water-skates.

Were she “sweet sixteen” and I a lad
     The seal of my doom were set;
Supremely happy or fatally sad,
But her sweet six years have made me glad
     In my Sixty and – my Pet!

We love with never a doubt or fear
     As the dateless Angels love,
In a sort of super-mundane sphere,
And know no cycle, and count no year
     But the endless one above.