Harry

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Title: Harry
Author: Fanny Wheeler Hart
Release Date: June 28, 2005 [eBook #16144]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HARRY***
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HARRY
by
FANNY WHEELER HART
The Author of Mrs. Jerningham's Journal
Fourth Edition
New York
Macmillan and Co.
1877
DEDICATED TO

MENELLA SMEDLEY,
AS A TINY TOKEN
OF
BOUNDLESS LOVE AND ADMIRATION.
HARRY.
PART I.
Love caught his heart in a lovely surprise,
Just the first moment he
looked in my eyes:
Poor little eyes! by no prescience lit,
They saw
him three weeks ere I lov'd him one bit.
Fair is the book[1] where we read of a life
Born to a throne, taking
love for its bliss,
Self-reproach wounding the sweet royal wife
For
keeping two years he had asked for as his.
[Footnote 1: See 'Life of Prince Consort,' vol. i.]
So _I_ might suffer a sort of remorse,
Thinking of days that I cared
not, yet knew;
Only, he says, ''Tis a matter of course
Girls should
be woo'd and their lovers should woo.'
Only, the blossom he stoops not to touch.
Sparkling with beauty that
lies at his feet;
Only, the blossom he coveteth much,
Is one that
shineth as distant as sweet.
Only, a bird may fly helplessly near,
Chirping aloud in a manner too
free;
Only, the bird he delighteth to hear,
Sings from the far-away
top of a tree.
Is it for this he first fancied me, then?
He to whom earth her
allegiance brings,
Noblest of nobles, a king among men,
Hero of
heroes! a god among kings!

'Twill be very nice to be very old,
And with wrinkled brows and eyes
that are dim,
To sit by the fire and in dreams behold
The face of the
child that was woo'd by him.
Eve in her Eden, belov'd and preferr'd,
Sun, moon, and stars for her
benefit made,
Bright as a blossom and gay as a bird,
Earth at her
feet like a pleasure-ground laid;
All things about her benignant and fair--
Was she of Adam an actual
part?
Love shining over her everywhere--
Had he no trouble in
winning her heart?
Born with a mind even Kant must admit
Had no antecedents for
doubt or regret,
Only white paper where nothing is writ,
Was she
his wife the first moment they met?
Did she no gradual wooing
receive?
Was she never a girl?--I am sorry for Eve!
Or if like others her history sped,
In those lovely regions to mortals
unknown;
Flirting and courting and woo'd ere she wed,
Was the
bird of her paradise Eve's chaperone?
I wonder if Adam my fancy would strike
As something like
Harry!--What is Harry like?
Handsome and tall, with command in his
eye,
The sweetest of smiles giving sternness the lie;
His soldierly
bearing keeps foemen at bay;
His hair is clipped close in the orthodox
way;
His nose has a curve from the bridge to the tip:
A statue might
envy his short upper lip.
He dances divinely, and walks with an air

Half autocratic and half debonair,
With something about him no
words can define:
Eve, was your hero as handsome as mine?
And oh! the years that pass'd over my head
When I was leisurely
growing or grown;
And oh! the minutes that suddenly led
To the
sweetest thought that ever was known.
Only one glad little glance that I gave,
Where by the window the

passion-flower grew,
And a strong man was turn'd into a slave,

Watching and waiting for all that I do.
And a strong man's heart beat only for me--
Only for me while it
answers life's call;
Till _I_ was compell'd to hear and to see;
And
only one little look did it all!
Oh, such an infinitesimal thing!
One unthought-of minute hurrying
by,
And the whole of two lives yet in their spring
Are utterly
chang'd for ever and aye!
If with idle heart and with careless eyes
I had not happened just there
and just then
To smile at a flower beneath the skies,
Should I never
have lov'd the first of men?
Had he seen me first in a festal hour,
Or riding, or driving, or by the
sea,
And not with a smile for the passion-flower,
Would he never,
never have cared for me?
Who planted the root, and its climbing plann'd?
Who water'd below
or cherish'd above?
Is it the work of a gardener's hand
That causes
my Harry and me to love?
Had that gardener never been born or hir'd,
Or done this one
insignificant thing;
Had the passion-flower died;--my heart is tir'd

With the troublesome sudden thoughts that spring;
And mine eyes are
filling with foolish tears,
And the pang that I feel is sharp and keen,

As I see the empty unhappy years,
And I think of all that