Gentle and loving,—lets me hold the child, Or drags him up the hills to find me flowers And fill those vases, ere I’m quite awake,— The grandiose red tulips, which grow wild, Or else my purple lilies, Dante blew To a larger bubble with his prophet-breath; Or one of those tall flowering reeds which stand In Arno like a sheaf of sceptres, left By some remote dynasty of dead gods, To suck the stream for ages and get green, And blossom wheresoe’er a hand divine Had warmed the place with ichor. Such I’ve found At early morning, laid across my bed, And woke up pelted with a childish laugh Which even Marian’s low precipitous ‘hush’ Had vainly interposed to put away,— While I, with shut eyes, smile and motion for The dewy kiss that’s very sure to come From mouth and cheeks, the whole child’s face at once Dissolved on mine,—as if a nosegay burst Its string with the weight of roses overblown, And dropt upon me. Surely I should be glad. The little creature almost loves me now, And calls my name ... ‘Alola,’ stripping off The _r_s like thorns, to make it smooth enough To take between his dainty, milk-fed lips, God love him! I should certainly be glad, Except, God help me, that I’m sorrowful, Because of Romney. Romney, Romney! Well, This grows absurd!—too like a tune that runs I’ the head, and forces all things in the world, Wind, rain, the creaking gnat or stuttering fly, To sing itself and vex you;—yet perhaps A paltry tune you never fairly liked, Some ‘I’d be a butterfly,’ or ‘C’est l’amour:’ We’re made so,—not such tyrants to ourselves, We are not slaves to nature. Some of us Are turned, too, overmuch like some poor verse With a trick of ritournelle: the same thing goes And comes back ever. Vincent Carrington Is ‘sorry,’ and I’m sorry; but _he_’s strong To mount from sorrow to his heaven of love, And when he says at moments, ‘Poor, poor Leigh, Who’ll never call his own, so true a heart, So fair a face even,’—he must quickly lose The pain of pity in the blush he has made By his very pitying eyes. The snow, for him, Has fallen in May, and finds the whole earth warm, And melts at the first touch of the green grass.