It is the season of the sweet wild rose, My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me! So golden-crownëd shines she gloriously, And with that softest dream of blood she glows; Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright! I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive The time when in her eyes I stood alive. I seem to look upon it out of Night. Here’s Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop. As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop, And crush it under heel with trembling limbs. She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks Of company, and even condescends To utter laughing scandal of old friends. These are the summer days, and these our walks.
At last we parley: we so strangely dumb In such a close communion! It befell About the sounding of the Matin-bell, And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum Of loneliness was round me. Then I rose, And my disordered brain did guide my foot To that old wood where our first love-salute Was interchanged: the source of many throes! There did I see her, not alone. I moved Toward her, and made proffer of my arm. She took it simply, with no rude alarm; And that disturbing shadow passed reproved. I felt the pained speech coming, and declared My firm belief in her, ere she could speak. A ghastly morning came into her cheek, While with a widening soul on me she stared.
We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, And in the osier-isle we heard them noise. We had not to look back on summer joys, Or forward to a summer of bright dye: But in the largeness of the evening earth Our spirits grew as we went side by side. The hour became her husband and my bride. Love, that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth! The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. Love, that had robbed us of immortal things, This little moment mercifully gave, Where I have seen across the twilight wave The swan sail with her young beneath her wings.
Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, Destroyed by subtleties these women are! More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win. Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. We drank the pure daylight of honest speech. Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear. For when of my lost Lady came the word, This woman, O this agony of flesh! Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh, That I might seek that other like a bird. I do adore the nobleness! despise The act! She has gone forth, I know not where. Will the hard world my sentience of her share I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.