Plashings—­or is it the pinewood’s whispers,
    Babble of brooks unseen,
  Laughter of winds when they find the blossoms,
    Brushing aside the green?

  Waves that dip, and dash, and sparkle;
    Foam-wreaths slipping by,
  Soft as a snow of broken roses
    Afloat over mirrored sky.

  Off to the east the steady sun-track
    Golden meshes fill
  Webs of fire, that lace and tangle,
    Never a moment still.

  Liquid palms but clap together,
    Fountains, flower-like, grow—­
  Limpid bells on stems of silver—­
    Out of a slope of snow.

  Sea-depths, blue as the blue of violets—­
    Blue as a summer sky,
  When you blink at its arch sprung over
    Where in the grass you lie.

  Dimly an orange bit of rainbow
    Burns where the low west clears,
  Broken in air, like a passionate promise
    Born of a moment’s tears.

  Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver,
    Clouds in the distance dwell,
  Clouds that are cool, for all their color,
    Pure as a rose-lipped shell.

  Fleets of wool in the upper heavens
    Gossamer wings unfurl;
  Sailing so high they seem but sleeping
    Over yon bar of pearl.

  What would the great world lose, I wonder—­
    Would it be missed or no—­
  If we stayed in the opal morning,
    Floating forever so?

  Swung to sleep by the swaying water,
    Only to dream all day—­
  Blow, salt wind from the north upstarting,
    Scatter such dreams away!

E.R.  SILL.

Memory.

  My mind lets go a thousand things,
  Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
  And yet recalls the very hour—­
  ’Twas noon by yonder village tower,
  And on the last blue noon in May—­
  The wind came briskly up this way,
  Crisping the brook beside the road;
  Then, pausing here, set down its load
  Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
  Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

T.B.  ALDRICH.

A Mood.

  A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness—­
  Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;
  A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain’s insistence;
  A tense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;
  A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken—­
  Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.

T.B.  ALDRICH.

The Way to Arcady.[12]

  Oh, what’s the way to Arcady,
    To Arcady, to Arcady;
  Oh, what’s the way to Arcady,
    Where all the leaves are merry?

  Oh, what’s the way to Arcady? 
  The spring is rustling in the tree—­
  The tree the wind is blowing through—­
    It sets the blossoms flickering white. 
  I knew not skies could burn so blue
    Nor any breezes blow so light. 
  They blow an old-time way for me,
  Across the world to Arcady.