THE QUAKER COQUETTE.

“DEAR COY COQUETTE, BUT ONCE WE MET.”

DEAR coy coquette, but once we met—

But once, and yet ’twas once too often,

Plunged unawares in silvery snares,

All vain my prayers her heart to soften;

Yet seems so true her eyes of blue,

Veined lids and longest lashes under,

Good angels dwelt therein, I felt,

And could have knelt in reverent wonder.

Poor heart, alas! what eye could pass

The auburn mass of curls caressing

Her pure white brow, made regal now

By this simplicity of dressing.

Lips dewy, red as Cupid’s bed

Of rose-leaves shed on Mount Hymettus,

With balm imbued they might be wooed,

But ah! coy prude, she will not let us.

No jewels deck her radiant neck—

What pearl could reck its hue to rival?

A pin of gold—the fashion old—

A ribbon-fold, or some such trifle;

And—beauty chief! the lily’s leaf

In dark relief sets off the whiteness

Of all the breast not veiled and pressed

Beneath her collar’s Quaker tightness.

And milk-white robes o’er snowier globes

As Roman maids are drawn by Gibbon,

With classic taste are gently braced

Around her waist beneath a ribbon;

158And thence unrolled in billowy fold

Profuse and bold—a silken torrent—

Not hide, but dim each rounded limb,

Well-turned, and trim, and plump, I warrant.

Oh, Quaker maid, were I more staid,

Or you a shade less archly pious;

If soberest suit from crown to boot

Could chance uproot your Quaker bias,

How gladly so, in weeds of woe,

From head to toe my frame I’d cover,

That in the end the convert “friend”

Might thus ascend—a convert lover.

Charles Graham Halpin.