By still pools mirroring sky or bough of tree,
(Like windows opening to some forest under-world
Full of blue streams, in a brown veil silver-pearled,)
Still we lay on the soft moss pierced with flowers.
Scattered with last year's leaves, through the morn-
ing hours.
The warmth and the sound of the underwood burn-
ing green,
ound and the w;
wavering wind.
mg green,
The sound and the warmth and the scent of the



23



The light and the sound and the life of the wood

between
Soft sky and earth, the one as the other kind,
Beat all around us, below us, and overhead.
Then, when a silence fell after sweet words said.
She, knowing well the words that would follow

soon,
Opened her book, and read through the whispering

noon :
Bending her girl's dark head with sun-threaded hair
Over the page, as I watched her and found her fair.
Bending her face with the wild-anemone flush
Over the page flecked with moving gold as her

gown.
With soft low voice that her sweet thoughts gave a

hush.
Read as the sun in the greenwood drifted down :
Voice of a girl growing to woman soon.
Even as May was growing to die in June :
I listening and looking, my hand straying idly round
Gathering violets unthinking from mossy ground.
While as I Kstened my hurrying heart kept time
With her voice as it rose and fell in the cadenced

rhyme.
Then at the end her fingers sought mine with a

thrill.
Taking the flowers the soft south wind had fanned :
Took them, and closed them between the leaves, and

were still.
