Running down stairs, with a laugh as I ran,
  Free as ’the blossom that hangs on the bough’—­
  I never had given a thought to a man,
  And why in the world should I give one now.

  Dancing along through the hawthorn-crown’d lane,
  ’Neath showers of flowers whose name I bear,
  Was it not strange I should find Harry Vane
  Coming to meet me just then and just there?

  Is it for this our two lives have been led,
  Each travelling on its different way,
  To meet with the blue sky over our head
  Shaded by delicate blossoms of may?

  Little reck’d I whom I happened to meet,
  That I had a lover I never guess’d,
  As I danc’d along with my careless feet,
  And the heart of a child within my breast.

  I had seen him a dozen times before,
  With a pleasure that brought no sudden change;
  I knew that he lik’d me—­but nothing more: 
  O Harry! to think of it is so strange!

  Sauntering on with the birds and the flowers,
  Talking of things that we know or we knew—­
  Of the pretty wishes that once were ours
  In long-ago times when our years were few: 

  A wild little bird skims rapidly by;
  And I tell of a day when my heart was stirr’d,
  And I cried as only a child can cry,
  That I was a girl instead of a bird.

  ‘And oh!’ in an eager manner I cried,
  ’I am feeling the very same wish to-day: 
  Oh for two wild wings, and to spread them wide,
  And rush through the sky away and away.’

  I cast up my eyes, to the smiling skies,
  And smiling I lower’d their glance again,
  And as they were lower’d they met his eyes,
  And a thrill went through me of sweetest pain.

  I blush’d when I thought of my eager words—­
  But why do I blush? and why do I care? 
  What does it matter to me and the birds,
  Or the pretty blossoms or scented air?

  ‘And I,’ he replied, ’have my wishes too: 
  Time teaches the real meaning of things;
  And only this moment, looking at you,
  I felt that an angel need not have wings.’

  We had sauntered on to the garden gate: 
  He look’d in my eyes ere we turn’d to part: 
  I walk’d away in a manner sedate,
  And with something new just touching my heart.

  When the first violet open’d in bloom,
  Was it surpris’d at its lovely perfume? 
  Why does not History tell us, who met
  First, the sweet breath of the first violet? 
  Rather I’d know it than facts that are known—­
  As when some tyrant ascended some throne,
  A battle was fought, a comet display’d,
  Coals were discover’d, or steam-engines made.