ep amid those tresses, child,
Contented to be thus beguiled.

_AT ALTENAHR._

1872.

_Meet we no angels, Pansie?_

Came, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet,
In white, to find her lover;
The grass grew proud beneath her feet,
The green elm-leaves above her:--
Meet we no angels, Pansie?

She said, "We meet no angels now;"
And soft lights streamed upon her;
And with white hand she touched a bough;
She did it that great honour:--
What! meet no angels, Pansie?

O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes
Down-dropped brown eyes so tender!
Then what said I?--Gallant replies
Seem flattery, and offend her:--
But,--meet no angels, Pansie?

_MARIT._

1869-70.

_C'est un songe que d'y penser._

My love, on a fair May morning,
Would weave a garland of May:
The dew hung frore, as her foot tripped o'er
The grass at dawn of the day;
On leaf and stalk, in each green wood-walk,
Till the sun should charm it away.

Green as a leaf her kirtle,
Her bodice red as a rose:
Her white bare feet went softly and sweet
By roots where the violet grows;
Where speedwells azure as heaven,
Their sleepy eyes half close.

O'er arms as fair as the lilies
No sleeve my love drew on:
She found a bower of the wildrose flower,
And for her breast culled one:
And I laugh and know her breasts will grow
Or ever a year be gone.

[Illustration: Full-page Plate]

O sweet dream, wrought of a dear fore-thought,
Of a golden time to fall!
She seemed to sing, in her wandering,
Till doves in the elm-tops tall
Grew mute to hear; as her song rang clear
How love is the lord of all.

[Decoration]

[Decoration]

ALFRED AUSTIN.

1835.

_A NIGHT IN JUNE._

Lady! in this night of June,
Fair like thee and holy,
Art thou gazing at the moon
That is rising slowly?
I am gazing on her now:
Something tells me, so art thou.

Night hath been when thou and I
Side by side were sitting,
Watching o'er the moonlit sky
Fleecy cloudlets flitting.
Close our hands were linked then;
When will they be linked again?

What to me the starlight still,
Or the moonbeams' splendour,
If I do not feel the thrill
Of thy fingers slender?
Summer nights in vain are clear,
If thy footstep be not near.

Roses slumbering in their sheath