Edmund Clarence Stedman (Эдмунд Кларенс Стедман)
The Doorstep
The conference-meeting through at last, We boys around the vestry waited To see the girls come tripping past Like snow-birds willing to be mated. Not braver he that leaps the wall By level-musket flashes litten, Than I, that stepped before them all Who longed to see me get the mitten. But no, she blushed and took my arm! We let the old folks have the highway, And started toward the Maple Farm Along a kind of lovers' by-way. I can't remember what we said, 'T was nothing worth a song or story; Yet that rude path by which we sped Seemed all transformed and in a glory. The snow was crisp beneath our feet, The moon was full, the fields were gleaming; By hood and tippet sheltered sweet, Her face with youth and health was beaming. The little hand outside her muff,— O sculptor, if you could but mould it!— So lightly touched my jacket-cuff, To keep it warm I had to hold it. To have her with me there alone,— 'T was love and fear and triumph blended. At last we reached the foot-worn stone Where that delicious journey ended. The old folks, too, were almost home; Her dimpled hand the latches fingered, We heard the voices nearer come, Yet on the doorstep still we lingered. She shook her ringlets from her hood And with a "Thank you, Ned," dissembled, But yet I knew she understood With what a daring wish I trembled. A cloud passed kindly overhead, The moon was slyly peeping through it, Yet hid its face, as if it said, "Come, now or never! do it! do it!" My lips till then had only known The kiss of mother and of sister, But somehow, full upon her own Sweet, rosy, darling mouth,—I kissed her! Perhaps 't was boyish love, yet still, O listless woman, weary lover! To feel once more that fresh, wild thrill I'd give—but who can live youth over.
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