13 MAY 1922, Page 13

THE LOVERS. WILLOW and water ! Would we were Like

those dear lovers all the year, And our exchanging light and shade As dark or bright reflection made, Blending through mirrored riso or fall And every windless interval. Might we but touch as tender lipt As they when first a ripple slipt To kiss tho downward dipping frond That loaned above the river-pond To close that envious space between Lest any weed should intervene, That Beauty over Beauty crouched Might tremble in the thing it touched ! Would love like theirs were ours to live, So delicate, so sensitive ;

But neither sun nor moon shall see Thy light in mine or mine in thee.

EDWARD DAVISON.