On New Year's Night I met with Kate,
The pretty hostess of our party;
And we were in our palmiest state
For mirth and fun and frolic hearty;
And so with quips that use made dear,
And bouts at sharp good-humour'd banter,
We usher'd in the young New Year
With shouts that made our pulses canter.
What riddles, too, we had to brace
Our wits up to the point of guessing,
With now and then for breathing space
Sweet intervals of romp and kissing.
Ah me! what eyes whose tender beams
Shot from their lashes long and shady,
So sweet, so deep, I took to dreams,
And felt my heart grow all unsteady.
I took Kate 'neath the mistletoe,
To give—what cannot grow too common—
A kiss; she made a feint or two,
Then yielded like a—like a woman.
I bent my bearded face to touch
Her own, upturn'd so frank and sweetly,
And, beaming with a smile, 'twas such
That made my friendship close completely.
And then she talk'd so soft and light,
With a voice that rang so musically,
I listen'd as a poet might
To some hid stream within a valley.
I did not wish to break the spell
That bound my head and heart together,
But wish'd within its power to dwell,
As in the happy summer weather.
Nor could my heart refuse its share,
But sang this snatch of song to show it.
O Kate, but thou art pure and fair,
And, better still, you do not know it.
So sang my heart far down, the while
She talk'd so artlessly and simple,
With still the other little smile,
And still the other little dimple.
Ah me, but miles are now between
Myself and Kate, to whom, dear reader,
You owe this song, that had not been
But for each open, artless pleader,
That spoke from lip and eye; and so
If I, a single man, should falter—
Sub rosa—one like Kate, I know,
Would coax me to the solemn altar.