I saw, I saw the lovely child
I watch'd her by the way,
I learnt her gestures sweet and wild
Her loving eyes and gay.
Her name?--I heard not, nay, nor care;
Enough it was for me
To find her innocently fair
And delicately free.
O cease and go ere dreams be done,
Nor trace the angel's birth,
Nor find the Paradisal one
A blossom of the earth!
Thus is it with our subtlest joys,--
How quick the soul's alarm!
How lightly deed or word destroys
That evanescent charm!
It comes unbidden, comes unbought,
Unfetter'd flees away;
His swiftest and his sweetest thought
Can never poet say.
--_Frederic William Henry Myers_