University of Virginia Library


192

The Lime-Tree.

A Lime-Tree broad of bough and rough of trunk
Deepens a shadow, as the evening cool,
Over the Luggie gathering in deep pool
Contemplative, its waters summer-shrunk;
The Lammas floods have sucked away the mould
About its roots, and now in bare sunshine
Like knot of snakes they twine and intertwine
Fantastic implication, fold in fold.
Secure in covert, 'neath the fringing fern
Lurks the bright-speckled trout, untroubled, save
When boyhood with a glorious unconcern
Eagerly plunges in the sleeping wave.
Here the much-musing poet might recapture
The inspiration flown, the vagrant rapture.