MY KATE.

She was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways, While she's still remembered on warm and cold days —

My Kate. Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face: And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,

You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth — My Kate. Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:

When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone, Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone — My Kate. I doubt if she said to you much that could act

As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer ‘ T was her thinking of others made you think of her — My Kate.

She never found fault with you, never implied Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town The children were gladder that pulled at her gown —

My Kate. None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall; They knelt more to God than they used,— that was all: If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,

But the charm of her presence was felt when she went — My Kate. The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, She took as she found them, and did them all good;

It always was so with her — see what you have! She has made the grass greener even here... with her grave — My Kate. My dear one!— when thou wast alive with the rest,

I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best: And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart — My Kate?