stanzas.
179
Stanzas
He paused: wild laughs and fitful screams came bursting on the breeze;
He leaned upon his staff to view the sporters twixt the trees:
Their silken locks danced back from brows all glad and sun-embrowned,
And agile feet flew quick as thought above the daisied ground.
A few had gained the goal, and there secure, but panting, stood,
Whilst others bounded towards the spot, pursuing and pursued;
Then rose again the laugh and scream, hand grasping tiny hand,
Till all within the circle stood, a rosy, breathless band.
The old man's ear drank in the sounds of little ones at play,
And as he gazed his dim eye seemed re-lit with youthful ray:
"The past, it is the past itself, embodied here in truth,
The thoughtless, painless, passionless, sweet primrose time of youth,
He leaned upon his staff to view the sporters twixt the trees:
Their silken locks danced back from brows all glad and sun-embrowned,
And agile feet flew quick as thought above the daisied ground.
A few had gained the goal, and there secure, but panting, stood,
Whilst others bounded towards the spot, pursuing and pursued;
Then rose again the laugh and scream, hand grasping tiny hand,
Till all within the circle stood, a rosy, breathless band.
The old man's ear drank in the sounds of little ones at play,
And as he gazed his dim eye seemed re-lit with youthful ray:
"The past, it is the past itself, embodied here in truth,
The thoughtless, painless, passionless, sweet primrose time of youth,
