Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/212

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184
A SMILE AND A SIGH.
A BIRD SONG.
IT'S a year almost that I have not seen her:
Oh last summer green things were greener,
Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer.

It's surely summer, for there's a swallow:
Come one swallow, his mate will follow,
The bird race quicken and wheel and thicken.

Oh happy swallow whose mate will follow
O'er height, o'er hollow! I'd be a swallow,
To build this weather one nest together.


A SMILE AND A SIGH.
A SMILE because the nights are short!
And every morning brings such pleasure
Of sweet love-making, harmless sport:
Love that makes and finds its treasure:
Love, treasure without measure.

A sigh because the days are long!
Long long these days that pass in sighing,
A burden saddens every song:
While time lags which should be flying,
We live who would be dying.