H. How beautiful the world is when it breathes The news of summer!--when the bronzy sheathes Still hang about the beech-leaf, and the oaks Are wearing still their dainty tasselled cloaks, While on the hillside every hawthorn pale Has taken now her balmy bridal veil, And, down below, the drowsy murmuring stream Lulls the warm noonday in an endless dream. O little brook, far more thou art to me Than all the pageantry of field and tree: _Es singen wohl die Nixen_--ah! 'tis truth-- _Tief unten ihren Reih'n_--but only Youth Can hear them joyfully, as once I lay And heard them singing of the world's highway, Of wandering ended, and the maiden found, And golden bread by magic mill-wheel ground. Lost is the magic now, the wheel is still, And long ago the maiden left the mill: Yet once a year, one day, when summer dawns, The old, old murmur haunts the river-lawns, The fairies wake, the fairy song is sung, And for an hour the wanderer's feet are young (_he dozes_). C. (returning) Father! I called you twice. H. I did not know: Where have you been? C. Oh, down the stream. {172} H. Just so: Well, I went _up_. C. I wish you'd been with me. H. When East is West, my daughter, that may be. {173} _Dream-Market_ A MASQUE PRESENTED AT WILTON HOUSE, JULY 28, 1909 _Scene_. A LAWN IN THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE'S ARCADIA _Enter FLORA, Lady of Summer, with her maidens, PHYLLIS and AMARYLLIS. She takes her seat upon a bank, playing with a basket of freshly gathered flowers, one of which she presently holds up in her hand._ FLORA. Ah! how I love a rose! But come, my girls, Here's for your task: to-day you, Amaryllis, Shall take the white, and, Phyllis, you the red. Hold out your kirtles for them. White, red, white, Red, red, and white again. . . . Wonder you not How the same sun can breed such different beauties? [_She divides all her roses between them._ Well, take them all, and go--scatter them wide In gardens where men love me, and be sure {174} Where even one flower falls, or one soft petal, Next year shall see a hundred. [_As they turn to go, enter LUCIA in hunting dress, with bow in hand and a hound by her side. FLORA rises to meet her, and recalls her maidens._] Stay! attend me. LUCIA. Greeting, fair ladies; you, I think, must be Daughters of this green Earth, and one of you The sweet Dame Flora. FLORA. Your true servant, madam. But if my memory be not newly withered I have not known the pleasure. . . .