Oh, happy hours of pure delight! Sweet moments drowned in wells of bliss! Oh, halcyon days so calm and bright-- 35 Each morn and evening seemed to kiss! And that whereon I saw her first, While angling in the noisy brook, When through the tangled wood she burst; In one small hand a glove and book, 40 As with the other, dimpled, white, She held the slender boughs aside, While through the leaves the yellow light Like golden water seemed to glide, And broke in ripples on her neck, 45 And played like fire around her hat, And slid adown her form to fleck The moss-grown rock on which I sat. She standing rapt in sweet surprise, And seeming doubtful if to turn; 50 Her novel, as I raised my eyes, Dropped down amid the tall green fern. This day and that--the one so bright, The other like a thing forlorn; To-morrow, and the early light 55 Will shine upon her marriage morn. For when the mellow autumn flushed The thickets where the chestnut fell, And in the vales the maple blushed, Another came who knew her well, 60 Who sat with her below the pine, And with her through the meadow moved, And underneath the purpling vine She sang to him the song I loved. _Nathaniel G. Shepherd._ CCLXVII _SONG._ Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answered thee? Ask me no more. 5 Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye: Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more. 10 Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are sealed: I strove against the stream and all in vain: Let the great river take me to the main: No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more. 15 _Alfred Tennyson._ CCLXVIII _THE VIOLET._ Oh faint, delicious, spring-time violet, Thine odour, like a key, Turns noiselessly in memory’s wards to let A thought of sorrow free. The breath of distant fields upon my brow 5 Blows through that open door, The sound of wind-borne bells, more sweet and low And sadder than of yore. It comes afar, from that belovèd place, And that belovèd hour, 10 When life hung ripening in love’s golden grace, Like grapes above a bower.