Poetry Archives

You must not call me Maggie, you must not call me Dear,
  For I’m Lady of the Manor now stately to see;
And if there comes a babe, as there may some happy year,
  ‘T will be little lord or lady at my knee.

O, but what ails you, my sailor cousin Phil,
  That you shake and turn white like a cockcrow ghost?
You’re as white as I turned once down by the mill,
  When one told me you and ship and crew were lost:

Philip my playfellow, when we were boy and girl
  (It was the Miller’s Nancy told it to me),
Philip with the merry life in lip and curl,
  Philip my playfellow drowned in the sea!

I thought I should have fainted, but I did not faint;
  I stood stunned at the moment, scarcely sad,
Till I raised my wail of desolate complaint
  For you, my cousin, brother, all I had.

They said I looked so pale,—some say so fair,—
  My lord stopped in passing to soothe me back to life:
I know I missed a ringlet from my hair
  Next morning; and now I am his wife.

Look at my gown, Philip, and look at my ring,
  I’m all crimson and gold from top to toe:
All day long I sit in the sun and sing,
  Where in the sun red roses blush and blow.

And I’m the rose of roses says my lord;
  And to him I’m more than the sun in the sky,
While I hold him fast with the golden cord
  Of a curl, with the eyelash of an eye.

His mother said “fie,” and his sisters cried “shame,”
  His high-born ladies cried “shame” from their place:
They said “fie” when they only heard my name,
  But fell silent when they saw my face.

Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think
  I was so fair when we played boy and girl,
Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink
  Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent awhirl?

If I was fair then sure I’m fairer now,
  Sitting where a score of servants stand,
With a coronet on high days for my brow
  And almost a sceptre for my hand.

You’re but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown,
  A stranger on land and at home on the sea,
Coasting as best you may from town to town:
  Coasting along do you often think of me?

I’m a great lady in a sheltered bower,
  With hands grown white through having naught to do:
Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour
  Till I nigh wish myself a child with you.