My Lyrical Life :: :: University of Virginia Library

And once a year she has her Holiday;
One day of airy life in fairyland,
When young leaves open large their palms to catch
The gold and silver of the sun and shower;
Shy Beauty pusheth back her glittering hood,
To peep with her flower face; the Silver Birk
Shakes out her hair full-length against the blue;

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The Fir puts forth her timid finger-tips,
Like shrinking damsel trying a cold stream
In which she comes to bathe.

In merry green woods
She rambles where the blue wild hyacinths
Smile with their soft dream-haze in tender shade:
The lightsome dance of gladsome green above;
The whispering sweetness of the wood below;
Birds singing, as for love of her, all round:
Or, by the Brook that turns some stray sunbeam
To a crooked scimitar of wavy gold,
Then to itself laughs at the elvish work!
With her large eyes, and eager leaping looks,
She pores o'er Nature's living picture-page,
And gets some colour in her own pale life.
Then home, with kindled cheek, when Eve's one Star
Stands, waiting on the threshold of the night,
In lively expectation of all heaven.