The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

Late February days; and now, at last,
Might you have thought that winter's woe was past,
So fair the sky was, and so soft the air.
The happy birds were hurrying here and there,
As something soon would happen. Reddened now
The hedges, and in gardens many a bough
Was overbold of buds. Sweet days, indeed,
Although past road and bridge, through wood and mead,
Swift ran the brown stream, swirling by the grass,
And in the hill-side hollows snow yet was.

Within sound of the city, yet amid
Patches of woodland that its white walls hid,
The house was, where the elders sat this tide,
The young folk with them; by the highway-side
The first starred yellow blossoms of the spring
Some held in hand; some came in, hurrying
From deeper in the woods, and now in fold
Of skirt and gown its treasures did they hold;
And soon to garland-making youth and maid
Were set down: then the Swabian smiled, and said:

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“However it be that I, so old and grey,
A priest too, yet again must have to say
More words of Venus, judge ye, maids: in sooth,
I, wandering once in long-past days of youth,
Came to the place my tale shall tell of now.
Vague tales, wherein I was well fain to trow,
Being dreamy and a youth, I oft had heard
Thereof, yet somewhat I did grow afeard
Before that cavern, although not alone
I was there, and the morn was such an one
As this fair morn has been: my fellow there
Was an old forester with thin white hair—
Lo you, like mine now!—but his deep-set eyes,
Bright mid his wrinkles, made him seem right wise—
—As I would fain seem, maidens.—Ye may wot
That many a tale of that place had he got,
Because near by, child, boy, and man, had he
Dwelt ever: so on a felled oaken tree
We sat beside the cave's mouth there of old
While he this story, that I looked for, told.