Yea! hidden in the odorous aisles of May; Whose fragrance fans the air which faints away, There, in a labyrinth of leaves I caught her— Whereby soft willows kiss the silent water— I caught her, and I kiss’d, tho’ she did pray Release, and said: “Thou canst not hold Time’s daughter.” But her I held, nor let her thence depart Till I had won her favourable grace; And after oft we saw her fleeting face Laugh through the leaves, and in our kindled heart Were glad exceedingly, nor thought to part, Content a little while in each fair place To know a sweet above all flowery space.
My faint tongue faltereth when I would tell What doors of joy we pass’d, what sights to seek, But Love’s day endeth, and his holy week, Whose dear appointed feasts we kept full well; Seeking Love’s face at morn and eventide, Tho’ oft it was too bright to look upon, Shining above the splendour of the sun, A burning flame when day’s dim fire had died. And now, the last of days, it came to pass I with my Love, upon a space of grass, Sate by a water which the willows kept And silently the stream beneath them swept, Secret as time, and still, and staying not; Fair fell the sun thro’ glancing leaves above, And fair on us did shine the sun of Love, As one brief hour together we forgot All earthly things in that enchanted plot— The world of strife, and evil-favour’d care, And misery whose voice was silent there: Even so, a little while, our blissful lot.
A little while—but soon the end befel, For Time, a sudden shadow, on us fell, And loud above I heard his hateful bell Clang in the tower to ring our sweet day’s knell.
Thence was I torn from my dear Love away, And, as a dream, I lost upon that day My hold of joy, and slipp’d adown, adown. Nor knew I more until I woke again Unto the endless world with all its pain— The sea-wide city, and the sad refrain Of hungry waves that now my song would drown.
I SATE in my soul’s house one day The world-wide book before me lay And in mine eyes, as through a glass The colours of all things did pass, And thought and life, in mingled stream, Strange semblance showed as in a dream.
My soul’s still house lies hid in trees, And sitting in its porch one sees, Before the feet, a garden green, Amidst a wild and dark demesne, When sight may range by lea and lawn, From sunset to the gate of dawn, Till through the utmost wood may be Descried a dim and dreadful sea.