Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/114

 And at the turning of the year,

When August wanders in the cold,

The raiment of the nursling here

Is rich with green and glad with gold.

Oh, friend of mine, to one whose eyes

Are vexed because of alien things,

For ever in the wall moss lies

The peace of hills and hidden springs.

From faithless lips and fickle lights

The tired pilgrim sets his face,

And thinketh here of sounds and sights

In many a lovely forest-place.

And when by sudden fits and starts

The sunset on the moss doth burn,

He often dreams, and, lo! the marts

And streets are changed to dells of fern.

For, let me say, the wilding placed

By hands unseen amongst these stones,

Restores a Past by Time effaced,

Lost loves and long-forgotten tones!

As sometimes songs and scenes of old

Come faintly unto you and me,

When winds are wailing in the cold,

And rains are sobbing on the sea.

from the ways of this Woman! Campaspe we call her by name—

She is fairer than flowers of the fire—she is brighter than brightness of flame.

As a song that strikes swift to the heart with the beat of the blood of the South,

And a light and a leap and a smart, is the play of her perilous mouth.