A Child-World

_The Child-World--long and long since lost to view--

      A Fairy Paradise!--

  How always fair it was and fresh and new--

    How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes

      With treasures of surprise!

  Enchantments tangible: The under-brink

      Of dawns that launched the sight

  Up seas of gold: The dewdrop on the pink,

    With all the green earth in it and blue height

      Of heavens infinite:

  The liquid, dripping songs of orchard-birds--

      The wee bass of the bees,--

  With lucent deeps of silence afterwards;

    The gay, clandestine whisperings of the breeze

      And glad leaves of the trees.

      *      *      *      *      *

  O Child-World: After this world--just as when

      I found you first sufficed

  My soulmost need--if I found you again,

    With all my childish dream so realised,

      I should not be surprised._