XXX

No time for books or for letters:

What time should there be?

No room for tasks and their fetters:

Full room to be free.

The wind and the sun and the Maytime

Had never a guest

More worthy the most that his playtime

Could give of its best.

If rain should come on, peradventure,

( But sunshine forbid! )

Vain hope in us haply might venture

To dream as it did.

But never may come, of all comers

Least welcome, the rain,

To mix with his servant the summer's

Rose-garlanded train!

He would write, but his hours are as busy

As bees in the sun,

And the jubilant whirl of their dizzy

Dance never is done.

The message is more than a letter,

Let love understand,

And the thought of his joys even better

Than sight of his hand.