Scarce I know, Listening so To the streams Of the sea, If old dreams Sing to me! BALLADE OF SUMMER. TO C. H. ARKCOLL. WHEN strawberry pottles are common and cheap, Ere elms be black, or limes be sere, When midnight dances are murdering sleep, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And far from Fleet Street, far from here, The Summer is Queen in the length of the land, And moonlit nights they are soft and clear, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand! When clamour that doves in the lindens keep Mingles with musical plash of the weir, Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And better a crust and a beaker of beer, With rose-hung hedges on either hand, Than a palace in town and a prince’s cheer, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand! When big trout late in the twilight leap, When cuckoo clamoureth far and near, When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And it’s oh to sail, with the wind to steer, Where kine knee deep in the water stand, On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand! ENVOY. Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here, Then comes in the sweet o’ the year! And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand! BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS. BETWEEN the moonlight and the fire In winter twilights long ago, What ghosts we raised for your desire To make your merry blood run slow! How old, how grave, how wise we grow! No Christmas ghost can make us chill, Save _those_ that troop in mournful row, The ghosts we all can raise at will! The beasts can talk in barn and byre On Christmas Eve, old legends know, As year by year the years retire, We men fall silent then I trow, Such sights hath Memory to show, Such voices from the silence thrill, Such shapes return with Christmas snow,— The ghosts we all can raise at will. Oh, children of the village choir, Your carols on the midnight throw, Oh bright across the mist and mire Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow! Beat back the dread, beat down the woe, Let’s cheerily descend the hill; Be welcome all, to come or go, The ghosts we all can raise at will! ENVOY. Friend, _sursum corda_, soon or slow We part, like guests who’ve joyed their fill; Forget them not, nor mourn them so, The ghosts we all can raise at will! LOVE’S EASTER. SONNET. LOVE died here Long ago; O’er his bier, Lying low, Poppies throw; Shed no tear; Year by year, Roses blow!