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SUMMER WIND AND GUSTS

In playsome whirl and curl ;

And while, with darksome shade, the sun
Once mark'd our shapes within the glade,
The wind brought by a shading cloud
On high, and hid them, shade by shade,
In streaming soft, with clouds aloft.

The winds may roll the thistledown

By knoll or mead, in summer light,
Or else may blow, in winter days,
The snow against my blinded sight,
With many a whirl and curl;

Or under rock or smooth-wall'd tow'r
May mock my song, or sound my call,
Or sway, through hours of lonesome night,
My flow'rs in bloom, by ground or wall,

Onstreaming soft, and blowing oft.

A MATCH OF QUESTIONS

JOHN AND THOMAS

J. WHERE the stream of the river may bound,

All in foam, over block upon block,

Of grey stone, shall we say that the sound

Is the sound of the stream or the rock?

T. Where the black-spotted bean-bloom is out, As we talk of the smell, do we mean

That the sweetness that wavers about

Is the smell of the wind or the bean?

J. Where the sunlight that plays off and on, In the brook-pool, may dazzle your sight, Would you say that the bow-neckèd swan Is in gleams of the pool, or the light?

T. When your head should have met, in the night,
With the door, and be ready to split,

Would you say, if you wished to be right,
'Twas the head or the door that was hit?

J. When the heart may leap high at the sight
Of the dwelling of some belov'd face,
Shall we take it, that all our delight
Is a charm of the face, or the place?

T. When a pretty girl's father, one night,
Set the dog at a youth, that would scan
Her abode, should we think the poor wight
Put to flight, by the dog or the man?

J. Ah! you only can turn it to fun.

T. And he only could learn how to run.

THE STRING TOKEN

'IF I am gone on, you will find a small string '— Were her words 'on this twig of the oak by the spring.'

Oh! gay are the new-leaved trees, in the spring, Down under the height, where the skylark may sing; And welcome in summer are tree-leaves that meet On wide-spreading limbs, for a screen from the heat; And fair in the fall-tide may flutter the few

Yellow leaves of the trees that the sky may shine through.

But welcomer far than the leaves, is the string
On the twig of the oak by the spring.

H

SHEEP IN THE SHADE

IN summer time, I took my road
From stile to stile, from ground to ground,
The while the cloudless sunshine glowed,
On down and mead, by sun-heat browned,
Where slowly round a wide-bent bow
The stream wound on, with water low :

In hopeful hours that glided on,
With me in happiness now gone.

And there, below the elm-tree shroud,
Where shaded air might cooler swim,
There lay a quickly-panting crowd
Of sheep, within the shadow's rim,