Page:A midsummer holiday and other poems (IA midsummerholiday00swin).pdf/100

II

Even as he lay lapped about with flowers,

⁠Lies the life now nine years old before us
Lapped about with love in all its hours;
⁠Hailed of many loves that chant in chorus
Loud or low from lush or leafless bowers,
⁠Some from hearts exultant born sonorous,
Some scarce louder-voiced than soft-tongued showers
⁠Two months hence, when spring's light wings poised o'er us
High shall hover, and her heart be ours.

III

Even as he, though man-forsaken, smiled

⁠On the soft kind snakes divinely bidden
There to feed him in the green mid wild
⁠Full with hurtless honey, till the hidden