So Oliver went, but the cowslips were tall at my feet,
And all the white orchard with fast-falling blossom was litter’d;
And under and over the branches those little birds twitter’d,
While hanging head downwards they scolded because I was seven. 
A pity.  A very great pity.  One should be eleven.

But soon I was happy, the smell of the world was so sweet,
And I saw a round hole in an apple-tree rosy and old. 
Then I knew! for I peeped, and I felt it was right they should scold! 
Eggs small and eggs many.  For gladness I broke into laughter;
And then some one else—­oh, how softly!—­came after, came after
With laughter—­with laughter came after.

And no one was near us to utter that sweet mocking call,
That soon very tired sank low with a mystical fall. 
But this was the country—­perhaps it was close under heaven;
Oh, nothing so likely; the voice might have come from it even. 
I knew about heaven.  But this was the country, of this
Light, blossom, and piping, and flashing of wings not at all. 
Not at all.  No.  But one little bird was an easy forgiver: 
She peeped, she drew near as I moved from her domicile small,
Then flashed down her hole like a dart—­like a dart from the quiver. 
And I waded atween the long grasses and felt it was bliss.

—­So this was the country; clear dazzle of azure and shiver
And whisper of leaves, and a humming all over the tall
White branches, a humming of bees.  And I came to the wall—­
A little low wall—­and looked over, and there was the river,
The lane that led on to the village, and then the sweet river
Clear shining and slow, she had far far to go from her snow;
But each rush gleamed a sword in the sunlight to guard her long flow,
And she murmur’d, methought, with a speech very soft—­very low. 
‘The ways will be long, but the days will be long,’ quoth the river,
‘To me a long liver, long, long!’ quoth the river—­the river.

I dreamed of the country that night, of the orchard, the sky,
The voice that had mocked coming after and over and under. 
But at last—­in a day or two namely—­Eleven and I
Were very fast friends, and to him I confided the wonder. 
He said that was Echo.  ’Was Echo a wise kind of bee
That had learned how to laugh:  could it laugh in one’s ear and then fly
And laugh again yonder?’ ’No; Echo’—­he whispered it low—­
’Was a woman, they said, but a woman whom no one could see
And no one could find; and he did not believe it, not he,
But he could not get near for the river that held us asunder. 
Yet I that had money—­a shilling, a whole silver shilling—­
We might cross if I thought I would spend it.’  ’Oh yes, I was willing’—­
And we ran hand in hand, we ran down to the ferry, the ferry,
And we heard how she mocked at the folk with a voice clear and merry
When they called for the ferry; but oh! she was very—­was