---

• Lay thine head here, Mary,
• Lay thine head here,
• While the long grass, Mary,
• With timid voice and wary,
• Sings in thine ear: —

• The grass which round thee, Mary,
• Shuts like a nest;
• By thy dear limbs, dear Mary,
• Lighter than limbs of Faëry,
• 10Daintily prest.

• Back with it all though, Mary,
• Back and aside;
• For the wind comes this way, Mary,
• And the tossing trees are airy
• And the skies are wide.

• Why so grave, Mary,
• Bashful and grave?—
• When God's strong Summer, Mary,
• To doubt and gloom contrary,
• Leaps and is brave.

• What fear is in thine eyes, Mary,
• Tender and soft?
• I love to see them, Mary,
• In whimsical vagary
• 20Lifted aloft.

• Mary, Mary, Mary,
• Laugh in my face:
• Meseemeth, my own Mary,
• No eyes can laugh so rarely
• In any place.

• Reach me thine hand, Mary,
• Reach me thine hand;
page: [3]  
Manuscript Addition: 4
Editorial Description: pagination in upper right
• In town and plain and prairie
• There is none whiter, Mary,
• From land to land.

• Thy lips to my lips, Mary,
• Thy lips to mine:
• High up in Hebe's dairy
• No milk so sweet, my Mary,
• 40On earth no wine.

• White thy cheek waxeth, Mary,
• And red, by turns.
• Why should the lips be chary
• Of that to give which, Mary,
• The heart so yearns?

• Deem thou no shame, my Mary,
• Deem thou no wrong;
• 'Tis the sun warms us, Mary,
• And love is hard to weary
• When the days are long.

   

• Hark, hark, hark! through the spangled dark,
• To the left and to the right,
• 20Hark, hark, hark! how the muskets bark
• Like watchdogs heard at night:
• While the trumpet shakes the battle-music down
• And laughs with a deathly heave,
• Ringing out fame and ringing in shame,
• Like the bells on New Year's Eve.

• He stared right out, and he turned him about,
• And he knew that It must fall—
• He knew the trodden ground for its bier
• And the cannon-smoke for its pall.
• 30Spurring, he looked not back; but sped
• As speedeth the speedy wind
• When, bound as far as St. Helena,
• It leaves Waterloo behind.

---