My Dear Miss Dorothy Gray

         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!