Little reck'd I whom I happened to meet,
That I had a lover I never guess'd,
As I danc'd along with my careless feet,
And the heart of a child within my breast.

I had seen him a dozen times before,
With a pleasure that brought no sudden change;
I knew that he lik'd me--but nothing more:
O Harry! to think of it _is_ so strange!

Sauntering on with the birds and the flowers,
Talking of things that we know or we knew--
Of the pretty wishes that once were ours
In long-ago times when our years were few:

A wild little bird skims rapidly by;
And I tell of a day when my heart was stirr'd,
And I cried as only a child can cry,
That I was a girl instead of a bird.

'And oh!' in an eager manner I cried,
'I am feeling the very same wish to-day:
Oh for two wild wings, and to spread them wide,
And rush through the sky away and away.'

I cast up my eyes, to the smiling skies,
And smiling I lower'd their glance again,
And as they were lower'd they met his eyes,
And a thrill went through me of sweetest pain.