He sees overhead as they dance to its tune The ears flash white in the wind, But that musical laugh before mid-noon Ripples far and faint in the heat, and soon Leaves silence only behind. And the silence falls on his fresh young soul, Like the far sound of the sea, Infinite, solemn; its strange control Possesses him quite; quick fancies roll Through his brain; half fearfully He looks; and the long path seems to strain His tremulous lips apart; Some sudden trouble his eyes sustain; For so the folded blossom of pain Has broke in his childish heart. What is it?—some swift intuitive glance, Half-shapen only in thought, Of stranger worlds, of wide mischance? Some intimate sense of severance Or loss?—I know not what. He turns and leaps; for his mother’s arms Out of the doorway lean; She folds him safely from all alarms, And rallies his courage with rhythmical charms,— Yet knows not what he has seen. FOOTPATH. ONWARD, where through dewy grass Slowly wading footsteps pass; Where the daisy’s peaceful eye Gazes trustful to the sky; Where the river rippling by Makes scarce heeded harmony With the deep bell’s distant chime, And the wandering waifs of rhyme, Flung at random from the mind, While the thought still lags behind, Held in check by idle musing Born of chance, not wilful choosing. Now, more clear on either side, See the meadows green divide; Clearer lies the path before us; Varied sounds are floating o’er us; All the stirring noise of life, All the ceaseless daily strife; The larger world breaks strongly in Where footpaths end and roads begin. THE FOOTPATH. I. REMEMBER how, the winter through, While all the ways were choked with mire, Half-maddened at the rain, we two Have nestled closer to the fire, And talk’d of all that should be done When April brought us back the sun, What gardens white with butterflies, What soft green nooks of budded heather, What moorlands open to the skies, We two would scour together! II. And now the month comes round again! Cool interchange of genial hours, Soft gleams of sunlight, streams of rain, Have starred the meadow-lands with flowers, And in the orchards on the hills The grass is gold with daffodils, And we have wander’d, hand in hand, Where sea below and sky above Seem narrowing to a strip of land The pathway that we love! III. Our path looks out on the wide sea, And knows not of the land; we sit For hours in silent reverie, To watch the sea, and pulse with it; Its deep monotonous refrain Brings melancholy, almost pain: We scarcely wish to speak or move, But just to feel each other there, And sense of presence is like love, And silence more than prayer. IV.