What was Dowsabella doing

There in the hot sun of noon?

Young green pears from the boughs came

strewing

All around, a summer too soon;

Love is sad, and love is gay,

Love is merry mad alway—
Dowsabella loved in June!

Dowsabella was waiting a lover;

Who can doubt he kept the tryst ?
Who can doubt her mouth was kiss'd,
Till its beauty rippled o'er?

That her bosom-beats grew stronger,
Till their strength could hold no longer;
Beaten out into a lover;

Up the fennel feathering over,

Toss'd about, and still above her

Sang the thrushes, love to lover;

Round her swung the drowsy clover,

Scent and slumber everywhere. Dowsabella was so fair,

Trust me, for a lover there!

Dowsabella, Dowsabella,

Well she coyed and courted there;

Where the fennel-boughs could cover,
Green and white; and primrose over

Swung two butterflies in mid-air.

PART II.

THE pears were in the perry ;
The apples froth'd in the cider ;
'Twas twilight; loud and merry,
The circle grew the wider
Around the crackling fire,
Where red the flames leapt higher
To ghost tales that ne'er tire,

When every girl creeps nigher

To the swain who sits beside her!

It was kissing, it was quaffing

The bright bubbles on the ale;
And with shrieking, and with laughing,
As the grandam told the tale,-
And the fold without was bleating,
As the thin cold clouds fell sleeting;

But the men their maids a-seating
On their knees, as ripe as sweeting

chood

Bit their lips, their cold arms heating

-

With their stalwart flesh and hale.

And anon the rebeck-player

Scraped a cord to make them mind,
Till the dancers whirl'd the gayer

Round in rings, like apple-rind,
Hand in hand the comely pair,
Lubin footing with his fair,

As she mouthed a plait of hair,
Strutting here, and curtsying there—
The calm beauty, Blowselind.

And the red light leapt up, running
Round the walls, and stair, and store,

And the gaming, and the funning

At the cider-butts, and, roar!
Up the chimney wriggled red,
Eke the rafters overhead,

Where the mint and sages dead

Rattled to the dancers' tread,

Leaping lustier from the floor.

Blowselind's a girl to wed,—

Large, and calm, and white, and red,

Has her suitors by the score;

When the service is well said, Meet to mate in marriage-bed;

Love no less, and love no more, Though the whole world else were dead, Just as placid as before.

Lubin loves her, in love's stead,
To the pips of her cold core ;
And a-near-and shame to tell-
Dowsabel, poor Dowsabel,

She who loved, and loved so well,
Writhed, as in the fires of hell,

In the chill draughts of the door.

After summer out of mind!
Calmer lass you'd never find

Than broad-bosom'd Blowselind!
And the red light kiss'd her o'er,
As her firm step trod the floor;

And her white throat and cheek red
Never ruddier than before;
And a-near, with twisted head,

Dowsabel, poor Dowsabel,

Writhed beside the door;

Stiff and still, she might be dead,
But her round lips pouted sore,

And her heart it knock'd so loud,
And her face, as white as shroud,
Gleam'd anon with passion pale,
As when murky streaks of cloud
From the ashy moon unveil ;
And her fearful eyes shrink inward,

And across the silent heavenDark, the looming deathly heaven— She glides as with a sail.

And thus Dowsabella glided
From the red light of the firelight,

Shooting crimson, splutt'ring red,
More and more,

To the green light of the moon-light,
Checker'd by the diamond window,

Cold and silent 'thwart the floor; And the red light and the green light, Jarr'd and marr'd her beauty o'er.

And with eyes as wild as witches',

Without motion t'wards the door,

With her eyes strain'd out behind her, Seeming

As if struggling from a dreaming

Ever lured her on before,