University of Virginia Library

Search this document 

expand section 
collapse section 
  
expand section 
expand section 
collapse section 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 I. 
 II. 
 III. 
  
  
  
  
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 
expand section 

BEST TIMES

We went a day's excursion to the stream,
Basked by the bank, and bent to the ripple-gleam,
And I did not know
That life would show,
However it might flower, no finer glow.
I walked in the Sunday sunshine by the road
That wound towards the wicket of your abode,
And I did not think
That life would shrink
To nothing ere it shed a rosier pink.
Unlooked for I arrived on a rainy night,
And you hailed me at the door by the swaying light
And I full forgot
That life might not
Again be touching that ecstatic height.

647

And that calm eve when you walked up the stair,
After a gaiety prolonged and rare,
No thought soever
That you might never
Walk down again, struck me as I stood there.
[_]

Rewritten from an old draft.