A tongue of lambent living flame
Stirs lightly when I hear your name,
Your features delicate and rare,
Quiver with every thought you bear;
It ever was a strange delight
To see your charming face alight,
To sit with you awhile apart
And hear the beating of your heart,
Or watch the message from your brain
Into your eyes then back again.
And still it is my fairest dream—
That delicate ethereal gleam,
The fire that played behind your face,
Lighting it with such fairy grace;
Such intuition sweet and wild;
Why should you always be a child?
You cannot ever hope to grow
Into a woman; oh dear no!
The fairies never would allow
Such desecration; so that, now,
You must be reconciled to stay
For ever as you are to-day.
What an enchanting fate is this!
Eternally a child to be,
Laughing with that untroubled bliss
That only haunts the fancy free:
Yes, yours is happiness indeed;
Barefoot to roam the woodland vale,
All careless, though your feet should bleed
Because you hear the nightingale;
All heedless, though the thorns should tear,
And though the pain be fierce and wild,
For Nature gives to you her kiss;
And you will always be her child.