POETRY.
IN THEIR GLAD PLAYING TIME.
Ls their glad playing time, like vrindflovvers down the billowy • April blowing, The children run where the grass grows deep.
Bewitched in the dream of their frolic and laughter, to this green glowing Sun-field they come, and along the cool Green hedgeway, nor knowing That here, under the grass and the windfiowers, the strong and the beautiful Lie in their sleep.
Why should we speak of the sleepers to these, the winsome and white Girls dancing and the mischievous boys ? Why shouldeur shadow fall on their game ?
They are so heedless of life and lavish with Time, already they outrun The flying hours past the edge of their own eager sight In their lAle brief flush of brightness, their light.
They would only look into our old eyes with eyes quicklytroublod, they would go whence they came And forget in the sun.
But one, perchance, might linger and speak as a child speaks, with words wonder-bound,
Ah no, we would answer, they sleep for ever :
And all that is lovely, all that is yours, is theirs as they rest, the rain And the sun unfailingly soak and sweeten their secret ground.
Nay, child, their sleep is sound, Neither do they feel, they hear not the birds, nor sea the trees again.
But the green-golden loveliness never
Shall desert them, nothing deserts them but pain.
THOMAS MOULT.
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