Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/112

Ah! now my fairy brook is dry;
Where are the playful gleamings of his eye,
Or songs of his sweet innocent revelry?
But while I love the gentle woodland,
And fragrant pines that stir and sing
Hushfully in upland valleys,
Blue lakes, and every living thing,
I love the little human children
Better than all woods and flowers,
The music of their innocent gambols
More than springs and summer showers.
And my heart is never lonely
If in roving I may meet
A few little children only
With their merrily flying feet,
In the playfield fresh from school,
Or among glades of woodland cool.
They are fair meanings of the daylight,
Clear fulfilment of meek flowers,
All a shyly wandering faylight
Would say among her leafy bowers.
In their sweet, shy, sidelong glances,
And every lisping word that wells,
In their light aerial dances,
As of wind-waved lily-bells …
I think I hear his very tone,
I feel his very living smile;
Yea, one would say he lends his own