April had covered the hills
           With flickering yellows and reds,
          The sparkle and coolness of snow
           Was blown from the mountain beds.

          Across a deep-sunken stream
           The pink of blossoming trees,
          And from windless appleblooms
           The humming of many bees.

          The air was of rose and gold
           Arabesqued with the song of birds
          Who, swinging unseen under leaves,
           Made music more eager than words.

          Of a sudden, aslant the road,
           A brightness to dazzle and stun,
          A glint of the bluest blue,
           A flash from a sapphire sun.

          Blue-birds so blue, 't was a dream,
           An impossible, unconceived hue,
          The high sky of summer dropped down
           Some rapturous ocean to woo.

          Such a colour, such infinite light!
           The heart of a fabulous gem,
          Many-faceted, brilliant and rare.
           Centre Stone of the earth's diadem!
               .    .    .    .    .
          Centre Stone of the Crown of the World,
           "Sincerity" graved on your youth!
          And your eyes hold the blue-bird flash,
           The sapphire shaft, which is truth.

          Life is a stream
          On which we strew
          Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
          The end lost in dream,
          They float past our view,
          We only watch their glad, early start.

          Freighted with hope,
          Crimsoned with joy,
          We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
          Their widening scope,
          Their distant employ,
          We never shall know.  And the stream as it flows
          Sweeps them away,
          Each one is gone
          Ever beyond into infinite ways.
          We alone stay
          While years hurry on,
          The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

          As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea
          Far out of sight of land, his mind intent