lustration]

The swans along the water glide,
Unfettered and yet side by side--
So should true lovers ever be,
Together ever--ever free.

A chain upon the white swan's neck,
What were it good for--save to break?
And swans who wear and break a chain
Swim never side by side again.

[Illustration]

My best beloved, the Spring is fair,
The woods are green and life is good,
Come out with me and let us tread
By field and fold and sweet wet wood--
The wind-flower blanches all the copse,
With hyacinth the hedge is blue,
And every wakened leaf is fair,
But not so fair as you!

The black-birds sing on hazel boughs
Beneath the overarching trees,
The cuckoo's distant song is borne
Across the meadow by the breeze,
The thrush's song is sweetest far
But saddens as the hours go by.
You hear? The nightingale's in love,
But not so much as I!

_E. Nesbit._

[Illustration]

Girdled with gold my little lady's bower
Stands at the portals of a world in flower,
And down her ways the changing blossoms mark
How the Spring grows each day from dawn to dark.

[Illustration]

When forth she moves, her dainty foot is set,
On cowslip, hyacinth and violet,
And all day long the woodland minstrels sing
Changes of measure for her pleasuring.

And all night long a passionate music stirs
Without her walls--the darkened belt of firs;
Hushed in their waving boughs the low winds brood,
Murmuring the sea's song for an interlude.

_Caris Brooke._

[Illustration]

The last bright relic of the moon's full gold
Burns on the swiftly flowing river's breast;
No sound but restless dipping of strong oars
To break the charm of nature's perfect rest.

Far off the town's faint mingled clamours stir,
And through the silence of the nearer light
The incense of the evening mist floats up--
The day's last lingering love-word to the night.

A sudden shiver of regretful change
Sighs through the whispering boughs that overhead
Sway in the wind's breath: down the red sun dips,
And in the twilight's arms the day lies dead.

Then rain, and after, moonshine cold and fair,
And scent of earth, sweet with the evening rain,
And slow soft speech beneath the rain-washed trees,
Ah, that such things should never come again!

[Illustration]

Oh listening trees, where are the wo