As a 1914Christmas offering,Margaret Perkins,a Hutchinson High School teacher,gave us her volume of beautiful poems.The Love Letters of a Norman Princess is the love story,in verse,of Hersilie,a ward and relative of William,The Conqueror,and Eric,a kinsman of the unfortunate King Harold.
I thought once,in a dream,that Love came near With silken flutter of empurpled wings That wafted faint,strange fragrance from the things Abloom where age and season never sear.The joy of mating birds was in my ear,And flamed my path with dancing daffodils Whose splendor melted into greening hills Upseeking,like my spirit,to revere.
Before you came,this heart of mine A fairy garden seemed With lavender and eglantine;And lovely lilies gleamed Above the purple-pansy sod Where ruthless passion never trod.
If Heaven had been pleased to let you be A keeper of the sheep,a peasant me,Within a shepherd's cottage thatched with vine Now might we know the bliss of days divine.--We are part of Heaven's scheme,You and I:Child of sunshine and the dew I was earthly--born as you.
Yet my little hour I go,Troubled maid,Even where the storm blasts blow,Unafraid;Confident that from the sod All things upward wend to God.
Dear heart,the homing hour is here,The task is done.Toilers,and they who course the deer Turn,one by one,At day's demise,Where dwells a deathless glow In loving eyes.I hear them hearthward go To castle,or to cottage on the lea;But him I love comes never home to me.
The peaks that rift the saffron sheen Of sunset skies In purple loveliness,when seen By nearer eyes,Are bleakly bare.To brave those boulders gray No climbers dare.O,in some future may This mountain mass of unfulfilled desires Be unto me as yonder haloed spires!
Miss Perkins is the compiler of Echoes of Pawnee Rock,and writes short stories and poems for the magazines.Some of her verse is published in Woolard's Father.