Page:Poems and lyrics of the joy of earth.djvu/103

Rh

yonder beech-tree single on the green-sward,
 * Couched with her arms behind her golden head,

Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
 * Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.

Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,
 * Press her parting lips as her waist I gather slow,

Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me:
 * Then would she hold me and never let me go?

Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow,
 * Swift as the swallow along the river's light

Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets,
 * Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.