In my still heart the thoughts awoke, Came lone by lone together— Say, birds and Sun and Spring, is Love A mere affair of weather? THE SUMMER SUN SHONE ROUND ME THE summer sun shone round me, The folded valley lay In a stream of sun and odour, That sultry summer day. The tall trees stood in the sunlight As still as still could be, But the deep grass sighed and rustled And bowed and beckoned me. The deep grass moved and whispered And bowed and brushed my face. It whispered in the sunshine: “The winter comes apace.” YOU LOOKED SO TEMPTING IN THE PEW YOU looked so tempting in the pew, You looked so sly and calm— My trembling fingers played with yours As both looked out the Psalm. Your heart beat hard against my arm, My foot to yours was set, Your loosened ringlet burned my cheek Whenever they two met. O little, little we hearkened, dear, And little, little cared, Although the parson sermonised, The congregation stared. LOVE’S VICISSITUDES AS Love and Hope together Walk by me for a while, Link-armed the ways they travel For many a pleasant mile— Link-armed and dumb they travel, They sing not, but they smile. Hope leaving, Love commences To practise on the lute; And as he sings and travels With lingering, laggard foot, Despair plays obligato The sentimental flute. Until in singing garments Comes royally, at call— Comes limber-hipped Indiff’rence Free stepping, straight and tall— Comes singing and lamenting, The sweetest pipe of all. DUDDINGSTONE WITH caws and chirrupings, the woods In this thin sun rejoice. The Psalm seems but the little kirk That sings with its own voice. The cloud-rifts share their amber light With the surface of the mere— I think the very stones are glad To feel each other near. Once more my whole heart leaps and swells And gushes o’er with glee; The fingers of the sun and shade Touch music stops in me. Now fancy paints that bygone day When you were here, my fair— The whole lake rang with rapid skates In the windless winter air. You leaned to me, I leaned to you, Our course was smooth as flight— We steered—a heel-touch to the left, A heel-touch to the right. We swung our way through flying men, Your hand lay fast in mine: We saw the shifting crowd dispart, The level ice-reach shine. I swear by yon swan-travelled lake, By yon calm hill above, I swear had we been drowned that day We had been drowned in love. STOUT MARCHES LEAD TO CERTAIN ENDS STOUT marches lead to certain ends, We seek no Holy Grail, my friends— That dawn should find us every day Some fraction farther on our way.