Nevera hand on the cottage door To call me forth in the evening light, My days grow old, and I watch no more The cowslips gold and the may-buds white. | |
Primroses nestle beneath the hedge Where we kissed and wept and said good-bye— For twenty years I have watched them bud, For twenty years I have seen them die. |  |
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| Yet now that the Spring once more has turned The sea to silver, the earth to gold, I shall watch no more from the primrose lane, Where I waited and watched in the days of old. Yet the children weave me their daisy chains, The woodland music is sweet and clear, Though the footsteps have wandered beyond recall, That I watched and waited so long to hear! Caris Brooke. |
| The swans along the water glide, Unfettered and yet side by side— So should true lovers ever be, Together ever—ever free. |
 | A chain upon the white swan’s neck, What were it good for—save to break? And swans who wear and break a chain Swim never side by side again. |
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| My best beloved, the Spring is fair, The woods are green and life is good, Come out with me and let us tread By field and fold and sweet wet wood— The wind-flower blanches all the copse, With hyacinth the hedge is blue, And every wakened leaf is fair, But not so fair as you! The black-birds sing on hazel boughs Beneath the overarching trees, The cuckoo’s distant song is borne Across the meadow by the breeze, The thrush’s song is sweetest far But saddens as the hours go by. You hear? The nightingale’s in love, But not so much as I! E. Nesbit. |