“Yet once a year (I did mine wrong) we went
To gather cowslips.  How we thought on it
Beforehand, pacing, pacing the dull street,
To that one tree, the only one we saw
From April,—­if the cowslips were in bloom
So early; or if not, from opening May
Even to September.  Then there came the feast
At Epping.  If it rained that day, it rained
For a whole year to us; we could not think
Of fields and hawthorn hedges, and the leaves
Fluttering, but still it rained, and ever rained.

“Ah, well, but I am here; but I have seen
The gay gorse bushes in their flowering time;
I know the scent of bean-fields; I have heard
The satisfying murmur of the main.”

The woman!  She came round the rock again
With her fair baby, and she sat her down
By Gladys, murmuring, “Who forbade the grass
To grow by visitations of the dew? 
Who said in ancient time to the desert pool,
’Thou shalt not wait for angel visitors
To trouble thy still water?’ Must we bide
At home?  The lore, beloved, shall fly to us
On a pair of sumptuous wings.  Or may we breathe
Without?  O, we shall draw to us the air
That times and mystery feed on.  This shall lay
Unchidden hands upon the heart o’ the world,
And feel it beating.  Rivers shall run on,
Full of sweet language as a lover’s mouth,
Delivering of a tune to make her youth
More beautiful than wheat when it is green.

“What else?—­(O, none shall envy her!) The rain
And the wild weather will be most her own,
And talk with her o’ nights; and if the winds
Have seen aught wondrous, they will tell it her
In a mouthful of strange moans,—­will bring from far,
Her ears being keen, the lowing and the mad
Masterful tramping of the bison herds,
Tearing down headlong with their bloodshot eyes,
In savage rifts of hair; the crack and creak
Of ice-floes in the frozen sea, the cry
Of the white bears, all in a dim blue world
Mumbling their meals by twilight; or the rock
And majesty of motion, when their heads
Primeval trees toss in a sunny storm,
And hail their nuts down on unweeded fields. 
No holidays,” quoth she; “drop, drop, O, drop,
Thou tired skylark, and go up no more;
You lime-trees, cover not your head with bees,
Nor give out your good smell.  She will not look;
No, Gladys cannot draw your sweetness in,
For lack of holidays.”  So Gladys thought,
“A most strange woman, and she talks of me.” 
With that a girl ran up; “Mother,” she said,
“Come out of this brown bight, I pray you now,
It smells of fairies.”  Gladys thereon thought,
“The mother will not speak to me, perhaps
The daughter may,” and asked her courteously,
“What do the fairies smell of?” But the girl
With peevish pout replied, “You know, you know.” 
“Not I,” said Gladys; then she answered her,
“Something like buttercups.  But, mother, come,
And whisper up a porpoise from the foam,
Because I want to ride.”