[Illustration: _Miss Morgan smiled happily at the clouds_.]
"WHILE THE EVIL DAYS COME NOT"
THE RHYME OF MIGNONETTE
When dandelions fleck the green,
And plum-blooms scent the evening breeze,
And robin's songs throb through the trees;
And when the year is raw thirteen,
And Spring's a gawky hoyden yet,
The season mirrors in its mien
And in its tom-boy etiquette,
Maid Mignonette, my Mignonette.
When bare-feet lisp along the path,
And boys and jays go whistling by,
And girls and thrushes coyly cry
Their fine joys through the aftermath--
Then laid ghosts know their amulet
Which fickle siren mem'ry hath;
So laughing comes that sad coquette,
Comes Mignonette,--my Mignonette.
The wild rose is a conjurer,
It charms the heavy years away,
Unshoes my feet and bids them stray
O'er playgrounds where our temples were.
To some pale star I owe a debt
For harboring the soul of her
With whom I learned love's alphabet--
With Mignonette, my Mignonette.
"While the Evil Days come not"
We duck through the court, reminded a
bit by our feelings of our first love, who hadn't
the cleanest of faces, or the nicest of manners;
but she takes her station in our memory because
we were boys then, and the golden halo
of youth is upon her.--_George Meredith_.
What little things turn great events! Tragedies swing on such
inconsequential hinges.
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