Your breezy robe, your cheerful tone,

As through our pretty home you speed
The busy ministries of life,
Will stir me swifter than my creed,
And be more musical, dear wife,
Than sweep of harp, or pipe of reed.

"Here is our fairy banquet hall!
See how it opens to the East,
And looks through elms! The board is small,
But what it bears shall be a feast
At morn, and noon, and evenfall.

"There will you sit in girlish grace,
And catch, the sunrise in your hair;
And looking at you, from my place,
I shall behold more sweet and fair
The morning in your smiling face.

"And guests shall come, and guests shall go,
And break with us our daily bread;
And sometime--sometime--do you know?
I hope that--dearest, lift your head;
And let me speak it, soft and low!

"The grass is sweeter than the ground:
Can love be better than its flowers?
Oh sometime--sometime--in the round
Of coming years, this board of ours