"From when she gamboll'd on the greens, A baby-germ, to when

The maiden blossoms of her teens

Could number five from ten.

"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain
(And hear me with thine ears),
That, tho' I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years—

"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass:

"For as to fairies, that will fit
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh."

Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;

And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.

But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.

"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town;
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.

"And with him Albert came on his.

I look'd at him with joy :

As cowslip unto oxlip is,

So seems she to the boy.

"An hour had past—and, sitting straight

Within the low-wheel'd chaise,

Her mother trundled to the gate

Behind the dappled grays.

"But, as for her, she stay'd1 at home,
And on the roof she went,

And down the way you use to come,
She look'd with discontent.

"She left the novel half-uncut
Upon the rosewood shelf;
She left the new piano shut:

She could not please herself.

"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,

And livelier than a lark

She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.

"A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild,

As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child:

"But light as any wind that blows

So fleetly did she stir,

The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,

And turn'd to look at her.

"And here she came, and round me play'd,

And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that

About my 'giant bole';

you

"And in a fit of frolic mirth
She strove to span my waist :
Alas, I was so broad of girth,
I could not be embraced.

made

"I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.

"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
As woodbine's fragile hold,

Or when I feel about my feet

The berried briony fold."

1 All editions previous to 1853 have staid.

O muffle round thy knees with fern,

And shadow Sumner-chace!
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!

But tell me, did she read the name
I carved with many vows

When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs?

"O yes, she wander'd round and round
These knotted knees of mine,

And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
And sweetly murmur'd thine.

"A teardrop trembled from its source,
And down my surface crept.

My sense of touch is something coarse,
But I believe she wept.

"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light,
She glanced across the plain;
But not a creature was in sight:
She kiss'd me once again.

"Her kisses were so close and kind,

That, trust me on my word,

Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirr'd:

"And even into my inmost ring

A pleasure I discern'd

Like those blind motions of the Spring,
That show the year is turn'd.

"Thrice-happy he that may caress
The ringlet's waving balm—
The cushions of whose touch may press
The maiden's tender palm.

"I, rooted here among the groves,

But languidly adjust

My vapid vegetable loves 1

With anthers and with dust:

The phrase is Marvell's. Cf. To kit Coy Mistress (a favourite poem of Tennyson's), "my vegetable loves should grow".

"For, ah! my friend, the days were brief1 Whereof the poets talk,

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

"But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem,
Have suck'd and gather'd into one
The life that spreads in them,

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

I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto."

O flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,

Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
But leave thou mine to me.

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

A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.

"'Tis 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.

"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes

Thro' all the summer of

my

leaves

A welcome mix'd with sighs.

I took the swarming sound of life—
The music from the town—
The murmurs of the drum and fife
And lull'd them in my own.

"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;

1 1842 to 1850. "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief.

"A third would glimmer on her neck

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

From head to ancle fine.

"Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadow'd all her rest—
Dropt dews upon her golden head,
An acorn in her breast.

"But in a pet she started up,
And pluck'd it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew.

"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.

"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.

"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."

Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay

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

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,

The warmth it thence shall win

To riper life may magnetise

The baby-oak within.