III.

Even as he, though man-forsaken, smiled On the soft kind snakes divinely bidden There to feed him in the green mid wild Full with hurtless honey, till the hidden Birth should prosper, finding fate more mild, So full-fed with pleasures unforbidden, So by love's lines blamelessly beguiled, Laughs the nursling of our hearts unchidden Yet by change that mars not yet the child.

IV.

Ah, not yet! Thou, lord of night and day, Time, sweet father of such blameless pleasure, Time, false friend who tak'st thy gifts away, Spare us yet some scantlings of the treasure, Leave us yet some rapture of delay, Yet some bliss of blind and fearless leisure Unprophetic of delight's decay, Yet some nights and days wherein to measure All the joys that bless us while they may.

V.

Not the waste Arcadian woodland, wet Still with dawn and vocal with Alpheus, Reared a nursling worthier love's regret, Lord, than this, whose eyes beholden free us Straight from bonds the soul would fain forget, Fain cast off, that night and day might see us Clear once more of life's vain fume and fret: Leave us, then, whate'er thy doom decree us, Yet some days wherein to love him yet.

VI.

Yet some days wherein the child is ours, Ours, not thine, O lord whose hand is o'er us Always, as the sky with suns and showers Dense and radiant, soundless or sonorous; Yet some days for love's sake, ere the bowers Fade wherein his fair first years kept chorus Night and day with Graces robed like hours, Ere this worshipped childhood wane before us, Change, and bring forth fruit--but no more flowers.

VII.

Love we may the thing that is to be, Love we must; but how forego this olden Joy, this flower of childish love, that we Held more dear than aught of Time is holden-- Time, whose laugh is like as Death's to see-- Time, who heeds not aught of all beholden, Heard, or touched in pa.s.sing--flower or tree, Tares or grain of leaden days or golden-- More than wind has heed of ships at sea?

VIII.

First the babe, a very rose of joy, Sweet as hope's first note of jubilation, Pa.s.ses: then must growth and change destroy Next the child, and mar the consecration Hallowing yet, ere thought or sense annoy, Childhood's yet half heavenlike habitation, Bright as truth and frailer than a toy; Whence its guest with eager gratulation Springs, and life grows larger round the boy.

IX.

Yet, ere sunrise wholly cease to shine, Ere change come to chide our hearts, and scatter Memories marked for love's sake with a sign, Let the light of dawn beholden flatter Yet some while our eyes that feed on thine, Child, with love that change nor time can shatter, Love, whose silent song says more than mine Now, though charged with elder loves and latter Here it hails a lord whose years are nine.

_AFTER A READING._

For the seven times seventh time love would renew the delight without end or alloy That it takes in the praise as it takes in the presence of eyes that fulfil it with joy; But how shall it praise them and rest unrebuked by the presence and pride of the boy?

Praise meet for a child is unmeet for an elder whose winters and springs are nine What song may have strength in its wings to expand them, or light in its eyes to shine, That shall seem not as weakness and darkness if matched with the theme I would fain make mine?

The round little flower of a face that exults in the sunshine of shadowless days Defies the delight it enkindles to sing of it aught not unfit for the praise Of the sweetest of all things that eyes may rejoice in and tremble with love as they gaze.

Such tricks and such meanings abound on the lips and the brows that are brighter than light, The demure little chin, the sedate little nose, and the forehead of sun-stained white, That love overflows into laughter and laughter subsides into love at the sight.

Each limb and each feature has action in tune with the meaning that smiles as it speaks From the fervour of eyes and the fluttering of hands in a foretaste of fancies and freaks, When the thought of them deepens the dimples that laugh in the corners and curves of his cheeks.

As a bird when the music within her is yet too intense to be spoken in song, That pauses a little for pleasure to feel how the notes from withinwards throng, So pauses the laugh at his lips for a little, and waxes within more strong.

As the music elate and triumphal that bids all things of the dawn bear part With the tune that prevails when her pa.s.sion has risen into rapture of pa.s.sionate art, So lightens the laughter made perfect that leaps from its nest in the heaven of his heart.

Deep, grave and sedate is the gaze of expectant intensity bent for awhile And absorbed on its aim as the tale that enthralls him uncovers the weft of its wile, Till the goal of attention is touched, and expectancy kisses delight in a smile.

And it seems to us here that in Paradise hardly the spirit of Lamb or of Blake May hear or behold aught sweeter than lightens and rings when his bright thoughts break In laughter that well might lure them to look, and to smile as of old for his sake.

O singers that best loved children, and best for their sakes are beloved of us here, In the world of your life everlasting, where love has no thorn and desire has no fear, All else may be sweeter than aught is on earth, nought dearer than these are dear.

_MAYTIME IN MIDWINTER._

A new year gleams on us, tearful And troubled and smiling dim As the smile on a lip still fearful, As glances of eyes that swim: But the bird of my heart makes cheerful The days that are bright for him.

Child, how may a man's love merit The grace you shed as you stand, The gift that is yours to inherit?

Through you are the bleak days bland; Your voice is a light to my spirit; You bring the sun in your hand.

The year's wing shows not a feather As yet of the plumes to be; Yet here in the shrill grey weather The spring's self stands at my knee, And laughs as we commune together, And lightens the world we see.

The rains are as dews for the christening Of dawns that the nights benumb: The spring's voice answers me listening For speech of a child to come, While promise of music is glistening On lips that delight keeps dumb.

The mists and the storms receding At sight of you smile and die: Your eyes held wide on me reading Shed summer across the sky: Your heart shines clear for me, heeding No more of the world than I.

The world, what is it to you, dear, And me, if its face be grey, And the new-born year be a shrewd year For flowers that the fierce winds fray?

You smile, and the sky seems blue, dear; You laugh, and the month turns May.

Love cares not for care, he has daffed her Aside as a mate for guile: The sight that my soul yearns after Feeds full my sense for awhile; Your sweet little sun-faced laughter, Your good little glad grave smile.

Your hands through the bookshelves flutter; Scott, Shakespeare, d.i.c.kens, are caught; Blake's visions, that lighten and mutter; Moliere--and his smile has nought Left on it of sorrow, to utter The secret things of his thought.

No grim thing written or graven But grows, if you gaze on it, bright; A lark's note rings from the raven, And tragedy's robe turns white; And shipwrecks drift into haven; And darkness laughs, and is light.

Grief seems but a vision of madness; Life's key-note peals from above With nought in it more of sadness Than broods on the heart of a dove: At sight of you, thought grows gladness, And life, through love of you, love.

_A DOUBLE BALLAD OF AUGUST._

(1884.)

All Afric, winged with death and fire, Pants in our pleasant English air.

Each blade of gra.s.s is tense as wire, And all the wood's loose trembling hair Stark in the broad and breathless glare Of hours whose touch wastes herb and tree.