Soft sunlight flickers on the checkered green: 
  Warm winds are stirring round my dreaming seat: 
Among the yellow pumpkin blooms, that lean
  Their crumpled rims beneath the heavy heat,
The striped bees in lazy labour glean
  From bell to bell with golden-feathered feet;
Yet even here the voices of hard life go by;
Outside, the city strains with its eternal cry.

Here, as I sit—­the sunlight on my face,
  And shadows of green leaves upon mine eyes—­
My heart, a garden in a hidden place,
  Is full of folded buds of memories. 
Stray hither then with all your old time grace,
  Child-voices, trembling from the uncertain keys;
Play on, ye little fingers, touch the settled gloom,
And quickly, one by one, my waiting buds will bloom.

Ah me, I may not set my feet again
  In any part of that old garden dear,
Or pluck one widening blossom, for my pain;
  But only at the wicket gaze I hear: 
Old scents creep into mine inactive brain,
  Smooth scents of things, I may not come anear;
I see, far off, old beaten pathways they adorn;
I cannot feel with hands the blossom of the thorn.

Toil on, sweet hands; once more I see the child;
  The little child, that was myself, appears,
And all the old time beauties, undefiled,
  Shine back to me across the opening years,
Quick griefs, that made the tender bosom wild,
  Short blinding gusts, that died in passionate tears,
Sweet life, with all its change, that now so happy seems,
With all its child-heart glories, and untutored dreams.

Play on into the golden sunshine so,
  Sweeter than all great artists’ labouring: 
I too was like you once, an age ago: 
  God keep you, dimpled fingers, for you bring
Quiet gliding ghosts to me of joy and woe,
  No certain things at all that thrill or sting,
But only sounds and scents and savours of things bright,
No joy or aching pain; but only dim delight.

AN ATHENIAN REVERIE

How the returning days, one after one,
Came ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged,
Yet from each looped robe for every man
Some new thing falls.  Happy is he
Who fronts them without fear, and like the gods
Looks out unanxiously on each day’s gift
With calmly curious eye.  How many things
Even in a little space, both good and ill,
Have fallen on me, and yet in all of them
The keen experience or the smooth remembrance
Hath found some sweet.  It scarcely seems a month
Since we saw Crete; so swiftly sped the days,
Borne onward with how many changing scenes,
Filled with how many crowding memories. 
Not soon shall I forget them, the stout ship,
All the tense labour with the windy sea,
The cloud-wrapped heights of Crete, beheld far off,
And white Cytaeon with its stormy pier,
The fruitful valleys, the wild mountain road,