Come back, sweet long-departed year,
When, sitting in a hollow oak,
I heard the sheep bells far and clear,
I heard a voice that silent spoke,
And felt in both a vague appeal,
And both were mingled in my dreams
With leaves that viewless breezes feel,
And skies clear mirrored in the streams.
Child-heart, child-thoughts, come back again!
Bring back the tall grass at my cheek,
The grief more swift than summer rain,
The joy that knew no words to speak.
The buttercup’s uplifted gold
That strives to reach my hands in vain,
The love that never could grow cold—
Child-heart, child-thoughts, come back again!
A Rainy Morning
THE low sky, and the warm, wet wind,
And the tender light on the eyes;
A day like a soul that has never sinned,
New dropped from Paradise.
And ’tis oh, for a long walk in the rain,
By the side of the warm, wet breeze,
With the thoughts washed clean of dust and stain
As the leaves on the shining trees.
June Apples
GREEN apple branches full of green apples
All around me unfurled,
Here where the shade and the sunlight dapples
A grass-green, apple-green world.
Little green children stirred with the heaving
Of the warm breast of the air,
When your old nurse, the wind, is grieving
Comfortlessly you fare.