That glistened in the April blue. Upon the slope so smooth and cool, I lay and never thought of you, But angled in the deep millpool. XI. A water-rat from off the bank Plunged in the stream. With idle care, Downlooking thro' the sedges rank, I saw your troubled image there. Upon the dark and dimpled beck It wandered like a floating light, A full fair form, a warm white neck, And two white arms-how rosy white! XII. If you remember, you had set Upon the narrow casement-edge A long green box of mignonette, And you were leaning from the ledge. I raised my eyes at once: above They met two eyes so blue and bright, Such eyes! I swear to you, my love, That they have never lost their light. XIII. That slope beneath the chestnut tall Is wooed with choicest breaths of air: Methinks that I could tell you all The cowslips and the kingcups there. Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent, Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower, Each quaintly-folded cuckoopint, And silver-paly cuckooflower. XIV. In rambling on the eastern wold, When thro' the showery April nights Their hueless crescent glimmered cold, From all the other village-lights I knew your taper far away. My heart was full of trembling hope. Down from the wold I came and lay Upon the dewyswarded slope. XV. The white chalkquarry from the hill Upon the broken ripple gleamed, I murmured lowly, sitting still While round my feet the eddy streamed : "Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes, The mirror where her sight she feeds, The song she sings, the air she breathes, The letters of the book she reads." XVI. Sometimes I saw you sit and spin, And, in the pauses of the wind, Sometimes I heard you sing within, Sometimes your shadow crossed the blind. At last you rose, and moved the light, Flitted across into the night, And all the casement darkened there. XVII. I loved, but when I dared to speak My love, the lanes were white with May, Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek Flushed like the coming of the day. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy, You would, and would not, little one, Altho' I pleaded tenderly, Remember you the clear moonlight, That whitened all the eastern ridge, When o'er the water, dancing white, I stepped upon the old millbridge. I heard you whisper from above A lutetoned whisper, "I am here ;" I murmured," Speak again, my love, The stream is loud: I cannot hear." XIX. I heard, as I have seemed to hear, When all the under-air was still, The low voice of the glad new year Call to the freshly-flowered hill. I heard, as I have often heard The nightingale in leavy woods Call to its mate, when nothing stirred To left or right but falling floods. XX. Come, Alice, sing to me the song I made you on our marriageday, When, arm in arm, we went along Half-tearfully, and you were gay |