XXVI

In the placid summer midnight,
Under the drowsy sky,

I seem to hear in the stillness
The moths go glimmering by.

One by one from the windows
The lights have all been sped.
Never a blind looks conscious-
The street is asleep in bed!

But I come where a living casement Laughs luminous and wide;

.

I hear the song of a piano

Break in a sparkling tide;

And I feel, in the waltz that frolics

And warbles swift and clear,

A sudden sense of shelter

And friendliness and cheer. . .

A sense of tinkling glasses,

Of love and laughter and lightThe piano stops, and the window

Stares blank out into the night.

The blind goes out, and I wander To the old, unfriendly sea,

The lonelier for the memory

That walks like a ghost with me.

XXVII

SHE sauntered by the swinging seas,
A jewel glittered at her ear,
And, teasing her along, the breeze

Brought many a rounded grace more near.

So passing, one with wave and beam,
She left for memory to caress
A laughing thought, a golden gleam,
A hint of hidden loveliness.

XXVIII

To S. C.

BLITHE dreams arise to greet us,
And life feels clean and new,
For the old love comes to meet us
In the dawning and the dew.
O'erblown with sunny shadows,
O'ersped with winds at play,
The woodlands and the meadows
Are keeping holiday.

Wild foals are scampering, neighing,

Brave merles their hautboys blow : Come! let us go a-maying

As in the Long-Ago.

Here we but peak and dwindle:

The clank of chain and crane,

The whir of crank and spindle
Bewilder heart and brain;

The ends of our endeavour

Are merely wealth and fame, Yet in the still Forever

We're one and all the same; Delaying, still delaying,

We watch the fading west: Come! let us go a-maying, Nor fear to take the best.

Yet beautiful and spacious

The wise, old world appears. Yet frank and fair and gracious Outlaugh the jocund years. Our arguments disputing,

The universal Pan

Still wanders fluting-flutingFluting to maid and man.

Our weary well-a-waying

His music cannot still : Come! let us go a-maying, And pipe with him our fill.

Where wanton winds are flowing Among the gladdening grass;