RODEN NOEL'S SPRING POETRY. 
65 
A bird hath a nest in a twilight of leaves, 
All woven of mosses, and lichen, and down ; 
An eye there is glistening, a bosom there heaves 
You may see there love’s miracle, when she hath flown — 
Four delicate ovals, flecked faintly with wine — 
She is guarding the mystical marvel of life. 
The wind-flower illumines her bowery shrine. 
And the pale flame of primrose around her is rife. 
But the nightingale sings ! how he sings ! w'hat a song. 
Clear water that falls, or meanders in day ; 
From a smooth stem of sound, that is mellow and long. 
Notes of fountainous blossom are lavished in play ; 
And one of his delicate silvery measures 
Recalls one who whips a clear water of glass ; 
* * * * * 
I am sheathed, like a chrysalid silken, with joy. 
And again in “ The Secret of the Nightingale” : — 
The ground I walked on felt like air. 
Airs buoyant with the year’s young mirth ; 
Far, filmy, undulating fair. 
The down lay, a long wave of earth ; 
And a still green foam of woods rose high 
Over the hill-line into the sky. 
In meadowy pastures browse the kine. 
Thin wheat-blades colour a brown plough line ; 
Fresh rapture of the year’s young joy * 
Was in the unfolded luminous leaf. 
And birds that shower as they toy 
Melodious rain that knows not grief. 
They allured my feet far into the wood, 
Down a winding glade with leaflets walled, 
With an odorous dewy dark imbued ; 
Rose, and maple, and hazel called 
Me into the shadowy solitude ; 
Wild blue germander eyes enthralled. 
Made me free of the garden bowers. 
There a wonderful laughing sisterhood of flowers meet him — 
anemone, starwort, — so he called the Stellaria (stitchwort), a 
poet’s licence — “and pale yellow primrose ere her flight,” 
cuckoo-flowers and wild hyacinths ; and the flowers promise 
to show him the bride-bed of Philomel, their queen, and they 
whisper to him to — 
move with a tender, reverent foot 
Like a shy light over bole and root. 
Into the heart of the verdure stole 
My feet, and a music unwound my soul ; 
Zephyr flew over a cool bare brow — 
I am near, very near to the secret now 1 
For the rose-coveis, all alive with song, 
F'lash with it, plain now low and long ; 
Sprinkle a holy-water of notes. 
I might go on and on quoting, but with one quotation more I 
must close. 
