My Kate

She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to naught in the long-trodden ways,
While she 's still remember'd on warm and cold days —
My Kate.

Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turn'd from the fairest to gaze on her face:
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth —
My Kate.

Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You look'd at her silence and fancied she spoke:
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Tho' the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone —
My Kate.

I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion: she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
'Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her —
My Kate.

She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as thro' the whole town
The children were gladder that pull'd at her gown —
My Kate.

None knelt at her feet confess'd lovers in thrall;
They knelt more to God than they used, — that was all:
If you praised her as charming, some ask'd what you
meant,
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went —

My Kate.
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her — see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here... with her

grave —
My Kate.
My dear one! — when thou wast alive with the rest,
I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best:
And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part

As thy smiles used to do for thyself, my sweet Heart —