Sing in the silent sky,
  Glad soaring bird;
Sing out thy notes on high 10
To sunbeam straying by
Or passing cloud;
  Heedless if thou art heard
Sing thy full song aloud.

Oh that it were with me
  As with the flower;
Blooming on its own tree
For butterfly and bee
Its summer morns: 
  That I might bloom mine hour 20
A rose in spite of thorns.

Oh that my work were done
  As birds’ that soar
Rejoicing in the sun: 
That when my time is run
And daylight too,
  I so might rest once more
Cool with refreshing dew.

AN APPLE GATHERING

I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
  And wore them all that evening in my hair: 
Then in due season when I went to see
    I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass
  As I had come I went the selfsame track: 
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
    So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
  Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer; 10
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
    Their mother’s home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
  A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
    More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
  Than apples with their green leaves piled above? 
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
    Of far less worth than love. 20

So once it was with me you stooped to talk
  Laughing and listening in this very lane: 
To think that by this way we used to walk
    We shall not walk again!

I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos
  And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened:  but I loitered, while the dews
    Fell fast I loitered still.

SONG

Two doves upon the selfsame branch,
  Two lilies on a single stem,
Two butterflies upon one flower:—­
  Oh happy they who look on them.

Who look upon them hand in hand
  Flushed in the rosy summer light;
Who look upon them hand in hand
  And never give a thought to night.

MAUDE CLARE

Out of the church she followed them
  With a lofty step and mien: 
His bride was like a village maid,
  Maude Clare was like a queen.

‘Son Thomas,’ his lady mother said,
  With smiles, almost with tears: 
’May Nell and you but live as true
  As we have done for years;

’Your father thirty years ago
  Had just your tale to tell; 10
But he was not so pale as you,
  Nor I so pale as Nell.’