oom
From mossy crag to crag and crest to crest
Untroubled by the valley's depth of doom.

The hawk dropped down into the pine-forest
And, far below, the lavrock ruffled her wings
Blossomwise over her winsome secret nest.

Then suddenly, softly, as when a fairy sings
Out of the heart of a rose in the heart of the fern,
Or in the floating starlight faintly rings

The frail blue hare-bells--turn again, and turn,
Under and over, the silvery crescents cry
To where the crimson fox-glove belfries burn

And with a deeper softer peal reply,
There came a ripple of music through the roses
That rustled on the dimmest rim of sky

Where many a frame of fretted leaves encloses
For lovers wandering in the fern-wet wood
An arch of summer sea that softly dozes

As if all mysteries were understood:
Yrma, my queen, what love could understand
That faint sweet music, _God saith all is good_,

As those two children, hand in sunburnt hand,
Over the blithe blue hills and far away
Wandered into their own green fairyland?

VI

For the song is lost that shook the dew
Where the wild musk-roses glisten,
When the sunset dreamed that a dream was true
And the birds were hushed to listen.

The song is lost that shook the night
With wings of richer fire,
Where the years had touched their eyes with light
And their souls with a new desire;

And the new delight of the strange old story
Burned in the flower-soft skies,
And nine more years with a darker glory
Had deepened the light of her eyes;

But lost, oh more than lost the song
That shook the rose to tears,
As hand in hand they danced along
Through childhood's everlasting years.

"Oh, Love has wings," the linnet sings;
But the dead return no more, no more;
And the sea is breaking its old grey heart
Against the golden shore.

She was eight years old that day,
Two young lovers were they.

If every song as they danced along
Paused on the springing spray;
Is there never a bird in the wide greenwood
Will hush its heart to-day?

There's never a leaf with dew impearled
To make their pathway sweet,
And never a blossom in all the world
That knows the kiss of their feet.

No light to-night declares the word
That