The Little Lady

O The Little Lady's dainty         As the picture in a book,      And her hands are creamy-whiter         Than the water-lilies look;      Her laugh's the undrown'd music         Of the maddest meadow-brook. -      Yet all in vain I praise The Little Lady!      Her eyes are blue and dewy         As the glimmering Summer-dawn, -      Her face is like the eglantine         Before the dew is gone;      And were that honied mouth of hers         A bee's to feast upon,      He'd be a bee bewildered, Little Lady!      Her brow makes light look sallow;         And the sunshine, I declare,      Is but a yellow jealousy         Awakened by her hair -      For O the dazzling glint of it         Nor sight nor soul can bear, -      So Love goes groping for The Little Lady.      And yet she's neither Nymph nor Fay,         Nor yet of Angelkind: -      She's but a racing school-girl, with         Her hair blown out behind      And tremblingly unbraided by         The fingers of the Wind,      As it wildly swoops upon The Little Lady.