CLVI.ONCE MORE AMID THE ALDER TREES.
I
Once more amid the alder trees,
Once more among the hills,
Mid dewy grass and fading leaves
And the blue steam on the rills.
II
Once more amid the pomp of clouds,
Once more in shade and shower,
What wonder is it I should weep
For joy of autumn's power?
III
One year unto another calls
In most mysterious ways:
Autumn to autumn joins, and wakes
The old autumnal days.
IV
In springtide thus the jocund past
One long, long springtide seems,
And summer shapes and finishes
The bygone summer's dreams.
V
Such separate prerogative
Doth in the seasons lie,
And of sweet use may wise men make
This deep consistency.
VI
Dear native land! dear English friends!
Now doubly dear are ye:
Is it a trouble or a joy
Wherewith ye welcome me?
VII
Since last I walked through withered fern
What tides of sight and sound
To far-off seas and foreign streams
My pliant heart have bound!
VIII
Mid gorgeous cities, stirring lands,
Mid wonder, change, and mirth,
For months and months there was to me
No England on the earth.
IX
I saw the fruit-tree roads of France,
The ancient Lombard plain,
And Venice in her white sunshine
Still sitting by the main.
X
And oh! how blue were all the bays,
How strange the desert peace,
The marbles hoar, the olives grey
In old heroic Greece.
XI
And bright was May in your green haunts,
Ye sweet Propontid isles!
And bright along the Bosphorus
Were summer's evening smiles.
XII
All up the wild Danubian plain,
In Transylvanian dells,
By Mur's romantic castled heights
And Drava's mountain wells,
XIII
Along the shining bends of Inn,
In old Bavarian towns,
By many a deep green Austrian lake,
On bleak Bohemian downs,
XIV
From hill and stream and ruin hoar—
Grave lessons did I learn,
Deep wisdom poured by earth herself
From her own ancient urn.
XV
Now is it all a dream, a thing
Gone with the buried past,
A vision broken up, a light
Which had no life to last.
XVI
And cheerfully, like vernal plants
That pierce the April earth,
Last autumn's thoughts come calmly up
With old autumnal mirth:
XVII
Calmly and cheerfully they come
As though I had been here
Nor left this single mossy bank
Through all the bygone year.
XVIII
Thought must be earned by thought, and truth
From other truth be won:
Next year the fruit will come of seed
In this year's travel sown.
