 | Lyrical Poems |  |
31
A COVNTRY PLACE REVISITED
My
foot returns: the same wild tree
Waves in the hedgerow over me.
I knew not then, I know not now
The leaves that hang upon her bough.
But I recal her wind-vexed form
Tossed in a sort of mimic storm,
And threatening all those leaves to cast
If wilder grew the sportive blast.
And how the bold and merry wind
Grew silent suddenly, I mind:
The wind, that summer's sweets had made
More bold to dare the silvan maid.
Waves in the hedgerow over me.
I knew not then, I know not now
The leaves that hang upon her bough.
But I recal her wind-vexed form
Tossed in a sort of mimic storm,
And threatening all those leaves to cast
If wilder grew the sportive blast.
And how the bold and merry wind
Grew silent suddenly, I mind:
The wind, that summer's sweets had made
More bold to dare the silvan maid.
The summer breeze still plays as free,
And shakes the ringlets of the tree:
But I, who watched them then as now,
Turn I to them as calm a brow;
Or can I smile to see their play
As blithe as on the former day?
Thought, that comes first as fantasy,
Sadly returns as memory.
She looks with question from the eyes
Whence first she laughed with glad surprise:
And thence descending to the heart
Ends with a sigh her former part;
Filling the sketch that first she drew
With graver touch than then she knew.
And shakes the ringlets of the tree:
32
Turn I to them as calm a brow;
Or can I smile to see their play
As blithe as on the former day?
Thought, that comes first as fantasy,
Sadly returns as memory.
She looks with question from the eyes
Whence first she laughed with glad surprise:
And thence descending to the heart
Ends with a sigh her former part;
Filling the sketch that first she drew
With graver touch than then she knew.
| Lyrical Poems | |