It's always drowsy summer when From out the past she comes again; The westering sunshine in a pool Floats in her parlour still and cool; While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, As into piercing song it breaks; Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar. And I am sitting, dull and shy, And she with gaze of vacancy, And large hands folded on the tray, Musing the afternoon away; Her satin bosom heaving slow With sighs that softly ebb and flow, And her plain face in such dismay, It seems unkind to look her way: Until all cheerful back will come Her cheerful gleaming spirit home: And one would think that poor Miss Loo Asked nothing else, if she had you. THE TAILOR Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er The tailor's old stone-lintelled door: There sits he stitching half asleep, Beside his smoky tallow dip. 'Click, click,' his needle hastes, and shrill Cries back the cricket 'neath the sill. Sometimes he stays, and o'er his thread Leans sidelong his old tousled head; Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye When some strange footfall echoes by; Till clearer gleams his candle's spark Into the dusty summer dark. Then from his crosslegs he gets down, To find how dark the evening's grown; And hunched-up in his door he'll hear The cricket whistling crisp and clear; And so beneath the starry grey Will mutter half a seam away. MARTHA 'Once ... once upon a time ...' Over and over again, Martha would tell us her stories, In the hazel glen. Hers were those clear grey eyes You watch, and the story seems Told by their beautifulness Tranquil as dreams. She'd sit with her two slim hands Clasped round her bended knees; While we on our elbows lolled, And stared at ease. Her voice and her narrow chin, Her grave small lovely head, Seemed half the meaning Of the words she said. 'Once ... once upon a time ...' Like a dream you dream in the night, Fairies and gnomes stole out In the leaf-green light. And her beauty far away Would fade, as her voice ran on, Till hazel and summer sun And all were gone:-- All fordone and forgot; And like clouds in the height of the sky, Our hearts stood still in the hush Of an age gone by. THE SLEEPER