I remember her as she was one June when we gathered eglantine together, and the richest and deepest of all reds in roses.  In the midsummer afternoons we plucked our garlands and brought them home at sunset time.  Such afternoons they were, tempting all living things into the symphony of glory, such afternoons of splendour that now, looking back, it seems to be the very acme of their glory that we also were to be found there in those woods with all the rest.  We came, soft stepping into the scene, and Nature, which moves continuously, harmoniously, did in the same moment build a throne and take us in it.  At once the life from us flowed out, and the life about flowed in.  Surely these were days of large orchestras, and of wonderful and complex melodies.  Zenobia moved like a queen over the scene, her rich garments sweeping over the soft grass, her graceful arms swinging as with secret blessings.  All the living things of the day seemed eager to be her pages; she was indeed a queen.  The world needed her and the world went well because of her.  The birds sang, they had not sung so sweetly but for her; the sun shone, it had not shone so brightly but for her; the roses stood on tiptoe on the bushes asking to be picked by her; the very air played lovingly about her, stealing and giving freshness.

The memory of all this comes out to me with a rush whenever I open a book of poems at a certain page, and with it comes the odour of sweet-brier and honeysuckle.  It was in a June, one of the past Junes when we also were June glory, beautiful, full-blossoming, and not more self-conscious than the brier itself.  I think now of the greens and crimsons, the blaze of holy living colour in which we were able to exist and breathe....The afternoon passed, the evening came.  Light unfolded silken banners of crimson floated down over the sky; crimson flower torches danced upwards from Zenobia’s hands, living rose glowed from out her cheeks.  About us and around floated lambent reds and blues and greens.  The deep lake looked into her eyes, the trees nodded to her, birds flew over her, the first stars peeped at her.

Mysterious, breathless, was the summer night.  An influence of the time seemed to press upon us; something exhaled from the mystery of flowers drew sleep down upon us.  Twilight lay upon the eyebrows of the girl, and the cloud of her dark hair nodded over it like the oncoming night.  We sat down upon a grass mound.  We ourselves, Nature around us, all things of the day, seemed under a spell.  Sleep lay about the roses, the bushes mused inwardly, the honeysuckle exhaled enchantment and was itself enchanted.  Then the things of the night came.  The myriad midges performed their rites over the blackthorn and the oak, and blackthorn and oak looked as if changed into stone.  The mice and the shrews crept safely over the toes of the blackberry bushes, the rabbits came tumbling along through banks of inanimate grass.  And fat night-moths sucked honey from half-conscious