For ah! my friend, the days were brief

Whereof the poets talk,

When that, which breathes within the leaf,

Could slip its bark and walk.

"But could I, as in times foregone,

From spray, and branch, and stem,

Have suck'd and gather'd into one

The life that spreads in them,

"She had not found me so remiss;

But lightly issuing thro',

I would have paid her kiss for kiss,

With usury thereto."

O flourish high, with leafy towers,

And overlook the lea,

Pursue thy loves among the bowers,

But leave thou mine to me.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern,

Old oak, I love thee well;

A thousand thanks for what I learn

And what remains to tell.

""T is little more: the day was warm;

At last, tired out with play,

She sank her head upon her arm

And at my feet she lay.

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves.

I breathed upon her eyes

Thro' all the summer of my leaves

A welcome mix'd with sighs.