That the restless ribboned things,

Where your slope of shoulder springs,

Are but undeveloped wings,

That will grow.

When you enter in a room,

It is stirred

With the wayward, flashing flight

Of a bird;

And you speak and bring with you

Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue,

And the wind-breath and the dew,

All the sound was as the "sweet"
Which the birds to birds repeat

In their thank-song to the heat

After rain.

Did I tell you tender things,

You would shake your sudden wings ;

You would start from him who sings,

And away.

POT-POURRI.

AUSTIN DOBSON.

"Si jeunesse savait !"

:

PLUNGE my hand among the leaves :

An alien touch but dust perceives,

Nought else supposes ;

For me those fragrant ruins raise

Clear memory of the vanished days.

When they were roses.

"If youth but knew !" Ah, "if," in truth!—

I can recall with what gay youth,

To what light chorus,

Unsobered yet by time or change,

We roamed the many-gabled Grange,

All life before us:

124

POT-POURRI.

Braved the old clock-tower's dust and damp

To catch the dim Arthurian camp

In misty distance;

Peered at the still-room's sacred stores,

And rapped at walls for sliding doors
Of feigned existence.

What need had we for thoughts or cares?
The hot sun parched the old parterres

And dahlia closes :

We roused the rooks with rounds and glees,
Played hide-and-seek behind the trees,-

Then plucked these roses.

Louise was one,-light, mad Louise,

But newly freed from starched decrees
Of school decorum ;

And Bell, the beauty, unsurprised

At fallen locks that scandalised

Our censor morum :