Winifred Howells

  • The wind exultant swept
    Through the new leaves overhead,
    Till at once my pulses leapt
    With a life I thought long dead,
    And I woke, as one who has slept,
    To my childhood,—that had not fled,
    On the wind my spirit flew;
    Its freedom was mine as...

  • There, as she sewed, came floating through her head
    Odd bits of poems, learned in other days
    And long forgotten in the noisier ways
    Through which the fortunes of her life now led;
    And looking up, she saw upon the shelf
    In dusty rank her favorite poets...

  • Do not waste your pity, friend,
      When you see me weep as now;
    Keep it to some better end.
    When dry-eyed I went about
      With a leaden heart locked in
      By a silent tongue, ah! then
      Had you brought it, it had been
    Sweet indeed to me; but...

  • “and you, Sir Poet, shall you make, I pray,
      This child a poet with that insight rare
      They tell me poets have, that everywhere
    He sees new beauties lost to common clay?”

    “Nay,” said the poet, “rather lend the boy
      Your scarf of gauze, to veil his...

  • I tripped along a narrow way,
    Plucking the same flowers, day by day;
    The sun which round about me lay
      Had never seemed to sink.

    But now at once the path divides;
    I see new flowers bloom on all sides;
    I stop, while doubt the sun half hides:...