The poet, the fool and the faeries

The turtle's egg by the shallow pool
Whitened a spot on the sandy gray;
And there by the log, where the shade greened cool,
The whippoorwill's nest on the brown moss lay.

I went by the path that we often went
When the years were young and our hearts were, too;
And the wind, that was warm with the wildrose scent,
Breathed on my eyes till I thought it you.

'T was the old, wild path where the horsemint grows,
And the milkweed's blossom makes musk the air;
And I plucked for your memory there a rose,
As once I had for your nut-brown hair.

And I came to the bridge that is built of logs,
Where the creek laughs down like a dimpled child;
Where we used to hark to the mellow frogs
When the dusk sat dim in the ferny wild.

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And I stood on the bridge and I heard your feet
Tremble its floor as I heard them when
I was a boy, whom you ran to meet,
Bare of foot and of years just ten.

The old log-bridge in the bramble lane,
Where the black-eyed-Susans make bright its marge;
Where the teasel's tuft is a thorny stain,
And the wild sunflower rays out its targe.

Where berries cluster their ripened red,
And, under the bush, on the creek's low bank,
The bob-white huddles an egg-round bed,
The kingfisher flits and the crane stands lank.

Your small tanned hand again was laid
In the briar-brown clasp of my freckled own;
And down from the bridge we went to wade
Where the turtle's egg by the water shone.

And again I heard the wood-dove coo;
And the scent of the woodland made me sad;
For the two reminded my heart of you,
When you were a girl and I was a lad.

It is not well for a man to go
The old lost ways that he went when young,
When Love walked with him, her eyes aglow,
A blue sunbonnet beside her swung.

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It is not well for woman or man
To come again to the place they knew
In the years that are gone; where their love began,
The love that died as all things do.

It was not well for my heart, I know,
On the old log-bridge in the woodland there:
Your eyes looked up from the creek below,
And in every zephyr I felt your hair.

Your face smiled at me, your beauty yearned
In every flower, or song I heard:
No matter—wherever my eyes were turned
You stood remindful with look and word.

You laid your hand on my heart: your hand,
Once light as a wisp and wild with joy;
And my heart grew heavy, you understand,
With the dreams that died with the girl and boy.

It was not well for my heart and me
On the old log-bridge in the woodland glen;
For there I met with your memory—
And the days that are gone come not again.

University of Virginia Library

WHEN THE YEARS WERE YOUNG