Calling with plaining note,
Most like a ringdove chiding,
Or a flute from some distant boat
O'er the glass of a still sea gliding.
Why sleep, ye flowers, ah, why,
What time we most must miss you?
Like a bride, see, the loving sky,
From your churlish sleep would kiss you.
Soft things, the dew, the breeze,
All soft things, are about you;
Awake, fair flowers, for scarcely these
Fill the yearning sense without you!
Wake ye not yet? Alas!
The silver time is fleeing!
—Fond idler, cease! those flowers but glass
The doom of thy changeless being!
Yea, ever when the hours
As now seem the divinest,
Thou callest, I know, on some sleeping flowers.
And finding no answer—pinest!
When Lucy ended, the stranger's praise was less loud than either the Doctor's or his lady's; but how far more sweet it was; and for the first time in her life Lucy made the discovery, that eyes can praise as well as lips. For our part, we have often thought that that discovery is an epoch in life.
