AFTER A READING.
95
Praise meet for a child is unmeet for an elder whose
winters and springs are nine:
What song may have strength in its wings to expand
them, or light in its eyes to shine,
That shall seem not as weakness and darkness if matched
with the theme I would fain make mine?
The round little flower of a face that exults in the sun-
shine of shadowless days
Defies the delight it enkindles to sing of it aught not
unfit for the praise
Of the sweetest of all things that eyes may rejoice in and
tremble with love as they gaze.
