And Love is Lord of you and me.
There’s no bird in brake or brere,
But to his little mate sings he,
‘Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here,
And Love is Lord of you and me!’”
Wrenched like a sob out of his own lost youth, the Senior Surgeon’s faltering college memories took up the old refrain:
“As I go singing, to my dear,
‘Kiss me, Sweet, the Spring is here,
And Love is Lord of you—and me!’”
Just for an instant a dozen long-forgotten pictures lanced themselves poignantly into his brain: dingy, incontrovertible old recitation-rooms where young ideas flashed as bright and futile as parade swords; elm-shaded slopes where lithe young bodies lolled on green velvet grasses to expound their harshest cynicisms; book-history, book-science, book-economics, book-love,—all the paper passion of all the paper poets swaggering imperiously on boyish lips that would have died a thousand bashful deaths before the threatening imminence of a real girl’s kiss! Magic days, with youth the one glittering, positive treasure on the tree of life, and woman still a mystery!