XLVII.

"For ah! the Dryad-days were brief

Whereof the poets talk,

When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk.

XLVIII.

"But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem,
Have sucked and gathered into one
The life that spreads in them,

XLIX.

"She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing through,

I would have paid her kiss for kiss

O flourish high, with leafy towers,

And overlook the lea,

Pursue thy loves among the bowers,

But leave thou mine to me.

200

LI.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;

A thousand thanks for what I learn

And what remains to tell.

LII.

""T is little more: the day was warm;

At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm,

And at my feet she lay.

LIII.

"Her eyelids dropped their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes

Through all the summer of my leaves A welcome mixed with sighs.

LIV.

"I took the swarming sound of lifeThe music from the town

The whispers of the drum and fife,

And lulled them in my own.

LV.

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;

A second fluttered round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;

LVI.

"A third would glimmer on her neck

To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck,

From head to ankle fine.

LVII.

“Then close and dark my arms I spread,

And shadowed all her rest

Dropt dews upon her golden head,

An acorn in her breast.

LVIII.

"But in a pet she started up,
And plucked it out, and drew

My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew.

LIX.

"And yet it was a graceful gift-
I felt a pang within

As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.

LX.

"I shook him down because he was

The finest on the tree.

He lies beside thee on the grass.

O kiss him once for me!

LXI.

“O kiss him twice and thrice for me,

That have no lips to kiss,

For never yet was oak on lea

Shall grow so fair as this."

LXII.

Step deeper yet in herb and fern,

Look further through the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place.

LXIII.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest,

That but a moment lay

Where fairer fruit of Love may rest Some happy future day.

LXIV.

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,

The warmth it thence shall win

To riper life may magnetize

The baby-oak within.

LXV.

But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.

LXVI.

May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint;
Thou art the fairest spoken tree

From here to Lizard point.