When all the skies with snow were grey,
      And all the earth with snow was white,
   I wandered down a still wood way,
      And there I met my heart’s delight
   Slow moving through the silent wood,
   The spirit of its solitude: 
      The brown birds and the lichened tree
      Seemed less a part of it than she.

   Where pheasants’ feet and rabbits’ feet
      Had marked the snow with traces small,
   I saw the footprints of my sweet—­
      The sweetest woodland thing of all. 
   With Christmas roses in her hand,
   One heart-beat’s space I saw her stand;
      And then I let her pass, and stood
      Lone in an empty world of wood.

   And though by that same path I’ve passed
      Down that same woodland every day,
   That meeting was the first and last,
      And she is hopelessly away. 
   I wonder was she really there—­
   Her hands, and eyes, and lips, and hair? 
      Or was it but my dreaming sent
      Her image down the way I went?

   Empty the woods are where we met—­
      They will be empty in the spring;
   The cowslip and the violet
      Will die without her gathering. 
   But dare I dream one radiant day
   Red rose-wreathed she will pass this way
      Across the glad and honoured grass;
      And then—­I will not let her pass.

And this Dedication, with its tender silver-grey notes of colour, is charming: 

   In any meadow where your feet may tread,
      In any garland that your love may wear,
   May be the flower whose hidden fragrance shed
      Wakes some old hope or numbs some old despair,
      And makes life’s grief not quite so hard to bear,
   And makes life’s joy more poignant and more dear
   Because of some delight dead many a year.

   Or in some cottage garden there may be
      The flower whose scent is memory for you;
   The sturdy southern-wood, the frail sweet-pea,
      Bring back the swallow’s cheep, the pigeon’s coo,
      And youth, and hope, and all the dreams they knew,
   The evening star, the hedges grey with mist,
   The silent porch where Love’s first kiss was kissed.

   So in my garden may you chance to find
      Or royal rose or quiet meadow flower,
   Whose scent may be with some dear dream entwined,
      And give you back the ghost of some sweet hour,
      As lilies fragrant from an August shower,
   Or airs of June that over bean-fields blow,
   Bring back the sweetness of my long ago.

All through the volume we find the same dexterous refining of old themes, which is indeed the best thing that our lesser singers can give us, and a thing always delightful.  There is no garden so well tilled but it can bear another blossom, and though the subject-matter of Miss Nesbit’s book is as the subject-matter of almost all books of poetry, she can certainly lend a new grace and a subtle sweetness to almost everything on which she writes.