Little leafy brothers! You can feel
Warmth o' the sun,
Cool sap streams run,
The slow soft nuzzling creep
Of roots sent deep,
And a close-anchored flowing
In winds smooth blowing.
And in the spring! The spring!
When the stars sing —
The world's love in you grows
Into the rose.

Little hairy brothers! You can feel
The kind sun too;
Winds play with you,
Water is live delight —
In your own swift flight
Of wings or leaping feet
Life rushes sweet —
And in the Spring! the spring!
When the stars sing —

In the early summer morning
I stand and watch them come,
The Children to the School-house;
They chatter and laugh and hum.

The little boys with satchels
Slung round them, and the Girls
Each with hers swinging in her hand;
I love their sunny curls.

I love to see them playing,
Romping and shouting with glee,
The boys and girls together,
Simple, fearless, free.

I love to see them marching
In squads, in file, in line,
Advancing and retreating
Tramping, keeping time.

Sometimes a little lad

(With his first book of " Songs. " )

" My Sweet, my Child, through all this night
Of dark and wind and rain,
Where thunder crashes, and the light
Sears the bewildered brain,

" It is your Face, your lips, your eyes
I see rise up; I hear
Your Voice that sobs and calls and cries,
Or shrills and mocks at fear.

" O this that's mine is yours as well,
For side by side our feet
Trod through these bitter brakes of hell.
Take it, my Child, my Sweet! "

" MY BABY GIRL, THAT WAS BORN AND DIED ON THE SAME DAY . "

" With wild torn heart I see them still,
Wee unused clothes and empty cot.
Though glad my love has missed the ill
That falls to woman's lot.

" No tangled paths for her to tread
Throughout the coming changeful years;
No desperate weird to dree and dread;
No bitter lonely tears!

" No woman's piercing crown of thorns
Will press my aching baby's brow;

" ESAU . "

Was it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? —
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!

Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?

To be a wife! . . . . He asks of me
Life's love, the heart's long loyalty,
That I join his life to my own
And of all men choose him alone
The father of my child to be.

Beloved — yes! Together we
Can work, can grow, our trades agree —
What! You demand domestic Joan?
And I must toil at your hearthstone
To be a wife?

Beloved! — listen — can't you see
That wifehood is not cookery?
That mother's love, that woman's heart
In kitchen service need no part?
My work is chosen — yet I'm free
To be a wife.

Girls, we love you, and love
Asks you to give again
That which draws it above,
Beautiful, without stain.

Give us weariless faith
In our Cause pure, passionate,
Dearer than life and death,
Dear as the love that's it!

Give to the man who turns
Traitrous hands or forlorn
Back from the plough that burns,
Give him pitiless scorn!

Let him know that no wife
Would bear him a fearless child
To hate and loathe the life
Of a leprous father defiled.

Girls, we love you, and love
Asks you to give again

A GAINST a tree that might be any tree,
Mid leaves of every season, sits a lady
In silk and velvet, with equable soft eyes.
Her hair is like a shell smooth with the sea,
Her face is porcelain; and in that shady
Green stirless bower she sits, beyond surprise,
And in her lap an unread letter lies.

Is it that colour makes the loveliness?
Is it that never-recoverable serene?
Is it the fingers lying gently laced?
Is it the mingling light and shadowiness
That draws my eyes, the ever-living green
That draws my heart? — Never to be embraced,

Fear the voice of Christmas Present—
Heavenly speech in mortal tongue—
Childhood's lips translating pæans
By its fellow-cherubs sung.

He that read aright the language
Held communion with Above,
Standing near to God and childhood
In democracy of love;

Winning weary hearts to gladness,
From the world's harsh pain and care;
Bearing hope and joy to sadness;
Teaching patience to despair.

Breathe his name in nought of sorrow,
Mourn him not as of the dead,
Though the gentle master's spirit

Death ends well Life's undelight,
Yet Life shudders at Death's sight.

Life the dark hand sees, but not
What it brings, the clear cup bright.

So at sight of Love a heart
Fears that it must perish quite.

Only Self, the tyrant dark,
He must perish in Love's might —

That the heart may truly live,
Breathing free in Love's pure light.