GOING DOWN-HILL ON A BICYCLE A Boy's Song

The two following poems are all joy and life, as spiritual as the poetry of the seventeenth century, and with a sporting enterprise in them.

WITH lifted feet, hands still

I am poised, and down the hill
Dart, with heedful mind;
The air goes by in a wind.

Swifter and yet more swift,

Till the heart, with a mighty lift,

Makes the lungs laugh, the throat cry:

"O bird, see; see, bird, I fly.

'Is this, is this your joy,

O bird, then I, though a boy,
For a golden moment share
Your feathery life in air!"

Say, heart, is there aught like this
In a world that is full of bliss?
'Tis more than skating, bound
Steel-shod to the level ground.

Speed slackens now, I float
Awhile in my airy boat;

Till when the wheels scarce crawl

My feet to the pedals fall.

Alas, that the longest hill

Must end in a vale; but still,

Who climbs with toil, wheresoe'er,
Shall find wings waiting there.

H. C. BEECHING.

PRAYERS

GOD who created me

Nimble and light of limb, In three elements free,

To run, to ride, to swim:

Not when the sense is dim,

But now from the heart of joy,

I would remember Him:

Take the thanks of a boy.

Jesu, King and Lord,

Whose are my foes to fight,

Gird me with Thy sword,

Swift and sharp and bright.

Thee would I serve if I might;
And conquer if I can,
From day-dawn till night,

Take the strength of a man.

Spirit of Love and truth,
Breathing in grosser clay,
The light and flame of youth,
Delight of men in the fray,

Wisdom in strength's decay;

From pain, strife, wrong to be free,

This best gift I pray,

Take my spirit to Thee.

H. C. BEECHING.

S.P.

N

THE COUNTRY FAITH

HERE in the country's heart
Where the grass is green

Life is the same sweet life
As it e'er hath been.

Trust in a God still lives,
And the bell at morn

Floats with a thought of God
O'er the rising corn.

God comes down in the rain,
And the crop grows tall-
This is the country faith,
And the best of all!

NORMAN GALE.

LINES:

(Sent with a copy of "Robin" Herrick's Poems)

The poet plays gaily, but without irreverence, with the signs proper to saints. His homage to his "saint of flowers" is tender and gay.

FRESH with all airs of woodland brooks

And scents of showers,

Take to your haunt of holy books
This saint of flowers.

When meadows burn with budding May,

And heaven is blue,

Before his shrine our prayers we say—
Saint Robin true.

Love crowned with thorns is on his staff

Thorns of sweet-brier;

His benediction is a laugh,

Birds are his choir.

His sacred robe of white and red

Unction distils;

He hath a nimbus round his head

Of daffodils.

EDMUND Gosse.

DAISY

A meeting between a poet no longer young and a little Sussex girl. It is as simple as it is beautiful, until the unexpected sadness of the ending.

WHERE the thistle lifts a purple crown
Six foot out of the turf,

And the harebell shakes on the windy hill-
O the breath of the distant surf-

The hills look over on the South,

And southward dreams the sea;

And, with the sea-breeze, hand in hand,
Came innocence and she.

Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry
Red for the gatherer springs,

Two children did we stray and talk
Wise, idle, childish things.

She listened with big-lipped surprise,
Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine:
Her skin was like a grape, whose veins
Run snow instead of wine.

She knew not those sweet words she spake,
Nor knew her own sweet way;
But there's never a bird so sweet a song
Thronged in whose throat that day!

Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face!
She gave me tokens three :-

A look, a word of her winsome mouth,
And a wild raspberry.

A berry red, a guileless look,

A still word-strings of sand!

And yet they made my wild, wild heart
Fly down to her little hand.

For, standing artless as the air,
And candid as the skies,

She took the berries with her hand,
And the love with her sweet eyes.

The fairest things have fleetest end:
Their scent survives their close,
But the rose's scent is bitterness
To him that loved the rose !

She looked a little wistfully,
Then went her sunshine way :
The sea's eye had a mist on it,

And the leaves fell from the day.