Like gold on green in pantomimes, is blown till it burns blue,

By the angry nor'east gusts. But the nor'east wind to-day

Is less like a rampin' lion than some new-born lamb at play.

Wy, the laylock's out aready, purple spires and creamy clumps.

Oh, that scent of shower-washed laylock! There's a somethin' in me jumps

As I ketch it round some corner, where the heart-shaped leaflets small

Cluster up against the stucco, as they did about that wall,

Grey, and gritty, and glass-spiked, of our tumble-down old cot

Out Epping way, in boy-time long ago, and quite a lot

Of remembrances came crowding, like good ghostes, in that scent;