LIBER PIMUS VEL CARMINUM
147
Spring, maiden-footed, steals across the
space,
Sandalled with tremulous light, with flicker-
ing hair
Blown o’er the sweet looks of the fair child-
face,
Like willows drooping o’er the liquid
mere,
Whence timid eyes look far,
Even where her kisses are
Awaited by the tender mother lips,
Earth’s, that is lonely and old,
Grown sad, fearful, and cold
With bitter winter and the sun’s eclipse ;
So the child slips
From bough to bough between the weep-
ing trees,
And with frail fingers smooths and
touches them.
They murmur in their sleep: the moonlight
dips
And laughs, seeing how young buds catch
life from these
Child-kisses on the stem.
The leaves laugh low, and_ frosty-footed
Time
Shoulders a lighter burden ; in the dale
Some distant notes of lovely music climb,
Thrown from the golden-throated night-
ingale,
Pale sobs of love and life
With death and fear at strife,
Fiercely beset and hardly conquering,
When spring’s bright eyes at last
Flash through the sullen past,
And tune its pain to tears, its peace to
sing.
The earth's lips cling
To the child’s bosom, and low smiles
revive ;
Love is new-born upon the golden
hour,
And all the life of all the exultant spring
Breathes in the wind that wakes the world
alive
Into the likeness of a flower.
SUMMER.
Full is the joy of Maidenhood made strong,
Too proud to bend to swift Apollo’s
kiss ;
Rejoicing in its splendour, and the throng
Of gaunt hounds leashless before Artemis.
In strange exulting bliss
The maiden stands, full-grown, with bound-
ing breasts
Bared to the noon, and narrow
Keen eyes that glance, dim fires that veil
their crests
To flame along the arrow
Aimed at some gallant of ten tines perched
high
Branching against the sky
His cedar-spreading horns:
stands,
Holding in glimmering hands
A silver bow across the shining weather,
While, bound in pearl-wrought bands,
Her bright hair streams ; she draws the
quivering feather
Back to the small ear curved: with golden
zone
Gathering her limbs she stands alone
Like a young antelope poised upon a spire
of stone.
erect she
What tender lightning flashes in the bosom
Heaving with vigour of young life? What
storm
Gathers across the brow’s broad _lotus-
blossom?
What sudden passion fills the fragrant
form
With subtle streams of warm
Blood tingling to the finger-tips of rose ?
Swiftly the maiden closes
The lustre of her look: disdainful glows
The fire of wreathing roses
In her bright cheeks: she darts away to
find
Like some uncovered hind
Shade in the forest from the stag’s pursuit,
Ere the sun’s passion shoot