playmates; and together they
Across the lawn, or through the woods, would stray.
While he was wont to pull the lilies fair,
And weave them, with the primrose, round her hair;--
Plait toys of rushes, or bedeck the thorn
With daisies sparkling with the dews of morn;
While she, these simple gifts would grateful take---
Love for their own and for the giver's sake.
Or, they would chase the butterfly and bee
From flower to flower, shouting in childish glee;
Or hunt the cuckoo's echo through the glade,
Chasing the wandering sound from shade to shade.
Or, if she conned the daily task in vain,
A word from Edmund made the lesson plain.

V.

Thus years rolled by in innocence and truth,
And playful childhood melted into youth,
As dies the dawn in rainbows, ray by ray
In blushing beauty stealing into day.
And thus too passed, unnoticed and unknown,
The sports of childhood, fleeting one by one.
Like broken dreams, of which we neither know
From whence they come, nor mark we when they go.
Yet would they stray where Tweed's fair waters glide,
As we have wandered--fondly side by side;
And when dun gloaming's shadows o'er it stole
As silence visible--until the soul
Grew tranquil as the scene--then would they trace
The deep'ning shadows on the river's face--
A voiceless world, where glimmered, downward far,
Inverted mountain, tree, and cloud, and star.
'Twas Edmund's choicest scene, and he would dwell
On it, till he grew eloquent, and tell
Its beauties o'er and o'er, until the maid
Knew every gorgeous tint and mellowed shade
Which evening from departed sunbeams threw,
And as a painter on the waters drew.

VI.

Or, when brown Autumn touched the leaves with age,
The heavens became the young Enthusiast's page
Wherein his fancy read; and they would then,
Hand locked in hand, forsake the haunts of men;
Communing with the silver queen of night,
Which, as a spirit, shone upon their sight,
Full orbed in maiden glory; and her beams
Fell on their hearts, like distant shadowed gleams
Of future joy and undefined bliss--
Half of another world and half of this.
Then, rapt in dreams, oft would he gazing stand,
Grasping in his her fair and trembling hand,
And thus exclaim, "Helen, when I am gone,
When that bright moon shall shine on you alone,
And but _one_ shadow on the river fall--
Say, wilt thou then these heavenly hours recall?
Or read, upon the fair moon's smiling brow
The words we've uttered--those we utter now?
Or think,