Adventure (Smith)

Let us leave the hateful town With its stale, forgotten lies; Far beneath renewing skies, Where the piny slope goes down, All with April love and laughter— None to leer and none to frown— We shall pass and follow after Shattered lace of waters spun On a steep and stony loom Down the depths of laurel-gloom. Finding there a world re-made In the fern-embowered shade, Weaving bright oblivion Still from frailest blossom-trove, We shall mix our wilding love With the woodland and the sun.

Let us loiter, hand in hand, Hearing but the heart's command, Half our steps by kisses stayed, Prove the spring-enchanted glade; Breast to breast and limb to limb, Seize our happiness and bind it— Lose the pulse of time and find it, Free as vagrant seraphim. Ever leave regret and rue To the dutiful and jealous Fools that are not near to tell us All the things we should not do.

Though the bedded ferns be broken, And dishevelled blossoms lie On the rumpled moss for token Of the day's mad errantry— Still the tacit pines will keep Darkly in their sighing sleep All the sweet and perilous story; And the oaks and willows hoary For unheeding ears will tell Only things ineffable; And the later eyes that look On the pool-delaying brook, Shall not see within its glass Two that came to kiss and pass.