CHILDREN GATHERING PALMS

From A VISION OF POETS

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

UT hark! a distant sound that grows,

BA heaving, sinking of the boughs,

A rustling murmur, not of those,

A breezy noise which is not breeze!
And white-clad children by degrees
Steal out in troops among the trees, –

Fair little children, morning-bright,—
With faces grave, yet soft to sight,
Expressive of restrained delight.

Some plucked the palm-boughs within reach,
And others leapt up high to catch
The upper boughs, and shake from each

A rain of dew, till, wetted so,

The child that held the branch let go,
And it swang backward with a flow

Of faster drippings, then I knew

The children laughed; but the laugh flew
From its own chirrup as might do

A frightened song-bird; and a child Who seemed the chief, said, very mild, "Hush! keep this morning undefiled."

His eyes rebuked them from calm spheres ;
His soul upon his brow appears,

In waiting for more holy years.

I called the child to me, and said,

"What are your palms for?"-"To be spread," He answered, "on a poet dead.

"The poet died last month, and now

The world, which had been somewhat slow

In honouring his living brow,

"Commands the palms; they must be strown

On his new marble very soon,
In a procession of the town."

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

ITTLE Ellie sits alone

'Mid the beeches of a meadow,
By a stream-side on the grass;
And the trees are showering down
Doubles of their leaves in shadow
On her shining hair and face.

She has thrown her bonnet by;
And her feet she has been dipping
In the shallow water's flow;
Now she holds them nakedly
In her hands, all sleek and dripping,
While she rocketh to and fro.

Little Ellie sits alone,

And the smile she softly useth

Fills the silence like a speech;

While she thinks what shall be done,
And the sweetest pleasure chooseth
For her future, within reach.

Little Ellie in her smile

Chooseth, "I will have a lover,
Riding on a steed of steeds:

He shall love me without guile; And to him I will discover

The swan's nest among the reeds.

"And the steed it shall be red-roan, And the lover shall be noble,

With an eye that takes the breath,
And the lute he plays upon

Shall strike ladies into trouble,

As his sword strikes men to death.

"And the steed it shall be shod All in silver, housed in azure,

And the mane shall swim the wind;
And the hoofs along the sod
Shall flash onward and keep measure,
Till the shepherds look behind.

"He will kiss me on the mouth

Then, and lead me as a lover,

Through the crowds that praise his deeds; And, when soul-tied by one troth,

Unto him I will discover

That swan's nest among the reeds."

Little Ellie, with her smile

Not yet ended, rose up gayly,

Tied the bonnet, donn'd the shoe,
And went homeward round a mile,

Just to see, as she did daily,

What more eggs were with the two.

Pushing through the elm-tree copse, Winding by the stream, light-hearted, Where the osier pathway leads, Past the boughs, she stoops and stops: Lo! the wild swan had deserted,

And a rat had gnawed the reeds.

Ellie went home sad and slow. If she found the lover ever,

With his red-roan steed of steeds, Sooth I know not! but I know She could never show him never, That swan's nest among the reeds.