The little breezes, blithe as they are blind,

Teasing the slender blossoms pass and pass,

Soft-footed children of the gipsy wind,

To taste of every purple-fringèd head

Before the bloom is dead;

[Pg 16]

And scarcely heed the daisies that, endowed

With stems so short they cannot see, up-bear

Their innocent sweet eyes distressed, and stare

Like children in a crowd.

Not far to fieldward in the central heat,

Shadowing the clover, a pale poplar stands

With glimmering leaves that, when the wind comes, beat

Together like innumerable small hands,

And with the calm, as in vague dreams astray,

Hang wan and silver-grey;

Like sleepy mænads, who in pale surprise,

Half-wakened by a prowling beast, have crept

Out of the hidden covert, where they slept,

At noon with languid eyes.

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