In a Clover Field

SCENT of the hillside clover-field
Bestrewn with daisies tossing in the breeze,
Where rosy tops, articulate with bees,
Lift their warm brows to meet the silken yield

Of butterflies, like primroses aflight
In some far land where flowers have earned frail wings,
Why do you scatter dreams of wondrous things,
And care not where their beauty may alight?

’Mid all the little voices of the ground
I stood, a moment since, in mute content,
Till, woven in the clover’s wandering scent,
A thread of wraith-like loneliness I found.

It was as though the youth of many lives,
Long finished, pressed me close and trembled near,
Claiming a sign that some one held it dear
In that bright realm where memory survives.

Scent of the clover’s sun-fermented wine,
What is this wistful thing which you possess,
This passing sense of loss, this tenderness?
Is it your youth, or June’s? Or is it mine?