Page:Eight Harvard Poets.djvu/129

 FALSTAFF'S PAGE

To Reginald Sheffield

N blaze of curls and cowslip-colored coat He pranks a way before the wheezing Knight, Tall Windsor shows no blossom like this wight By park or sedgy pool or bearded moat; A skylark burbles in that milk-white throat, And I have heard him down a singing stream, Ere the brute morn shattered my happy dream Upon the sill, and weeping I awoke.

We had a music once; a poesie Sweet as a maiden, lissome as this lad, Full of rich merriment and gentle joy;

That other England lives and laughs in thee, A peal of morris-music, blithe and glad, Thou spray of bloom! Thou flower of a boy! 116