Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
104
XIX
THE CHILDREN'S PRIVILEGE
I love to mark a childish band at play
Through flowerful meadows or a woodland scene:
The linnets in the copse are not so gay,
The squirrels in the forest not so keen:
They bear themselves with such ecstatic mien
As only masters of a Mystery may.
It moves my heart to think I too have been
In younger years initiate as they.
This Nature that we marvel at, and find
Impenetrable, is not so to them,
But opens half her secrets to their gaze,
And leads their footsteps in romantic ways;
And none shall touch her garment's utmost hem,
Unless with childhood's unreflective mind.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |