The jolly donkeys that love me well Nuzzle with thistly lips; The harebell is song made visible, The dandelion's lamp a miracle, When the day's lamp dips and dips. There are, too, a sonnet called "Cards" and the very beautiful longer poem, "Summons," in which the glow of human love makes of the supernatural a mere shadow. In "Cards" the scene is a 'dim lily-illumined garden,' and four people are playing there by candle light. But out of the darkness which rings the circle of flickering light sinister things creep, menacing the frail life of one of the players. But, like swords clashing, my love on their hate Struck sharp, and drove, and pushed.... Grimly round you Fought we that fight, they pressing passionate Into the lit circle which called and drew Shadows and moths of night.... I held the gate. You said, "Our game," more truly than you knew. Again we perceive this sense of reality in the humour of a poem like "St Mark's Day" or "Three." It is a quality hearty and cheery in the way of one who knows all the facts, but has reckoned with them and can afford to laugh. It has a depth of tone unexpected in an artist whose natural impulse seems to be towards delicate line and neutral tint; and there is a tang of salt in it which one suspects of having been added of intent--as a quite superfluous preservative against sentimentality. "St Mark's Day" is very illuminating in this respect, and in the bracing sanity under which mere superstition wilts. The village girl, teased by neighbours into believing that her spectre was seen the night before and that therefore she must die within the year, is a genuine bit of rustic humanity. No portrait of her is given; but in two or three strong touches she stands before us, plump, rosy and rather stupid; hale enough to live her fourscore years, but sobbing in foolish fright as her sturdy arms peg the wet linen upon the line. I laughed at her over the sticky larch fence, And said, "Who's down-hearted, Dolly?" And Dolly sobbed at me, "They saw you, too!" (And so the liars said they had, Though I've not wasted paper nor rhymes telling you), And, "Well," said I, "_I'm_ not sad." "But since you and me must die within the year, What if we went together To make cowslip balls in the fields, and hear The blackbirds whistling to the weather?" So in the water-fields till blue mists rose We loitered, Dolly and I, And pulled wet kingcups where the cold brook goes, And when we've done living, we'll die.