In the Season

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

IT is the season now to go

About the country high and low,

Among the lilacs hand in hand,

And two by two in fairy land.

The brooding boy, the sighing maid,

Wholly fain and half afraid,

Now meet along the hazelled brook

To pass and linger, pause and look.

A year ago, and blithely paired,

Their rough-and-tumble play they shared;

They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and cried,

A year ago at Eastertide.

With bursting heart, with fiery face,

She strove against him in the race;

He unabashed her garter saw,

That now would touch her skirts with awe.

Now by the stile ablaze she stops,

And his demurer eyes he drops;

Now they exchange averted sighs

Or stand and marry silent eyes.

And he to her a hero is

And sweeter she than primroses;

Their common silence dearer far

Than nightingale and mavis are.

Now when they sever wedded hands,

Joy trembles in their bosom-strands,

And lovely laughter leaps and falls

Upon their lips in madrigals.