Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/56

IN WAR TIME Her speed is a shining arrow's!

Guns are silent for her.

So she glides to the ringing

Bells of the belfried town,

Kissing the wharves, and flinging

All of her jewels down.

Whence she gathers her riches,

Ladies, now would you see?

Leaving your city niches,

Wander awhile with me.

IV

1

strawberry-vines lie in the sun,

Their myriad tendrils twined in one;

Spread like a carpet of richest dyes,

The strawberry-field in sunshine lies.

Each timorous berry, blushing red,

Has folded the leaves above her head,

The dark green curtains gemmed with dew;

But each blushful berry, peering through,

Shows like a flock of the underthread,—

The crimson woof of a downy cloth

Where the elves may kneel and plight their troth.

2

Run through the rustling vines, to show

Each picker an even space to go,

Leaders of twinkling cord divide

The field in lanes from side to side;

And here and there with patient care,

Lifting the leafage everywhere,

Rural maidens and mothers dot 26