So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine It seems in after-dinner talk

Across the walnuts and the wine

To be the long and listless boy

Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire; For even here, where I and you

Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro' By some wild skylark's matin song.

And oft I heard the tender dove

In firry woodlands making moan; But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dream Still hither thither idly sway'd

Like those long mosses in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear

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The milldam rushing down with noise, 50 And see the minnows everywhere

In crystal eddies glance and poise, The tall flag-flowers when they sprung Below the range of stepping-stones, Or those three chestnuts near, that hung In masses thick with milky cones.

But, Alice, what an hour was that,
When after roving in the woods
('T was April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds 60
Were glistening to the breezy blue;

And on the slope, an absent fool,
I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.

A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head

From some odd corner of the brain.
It haunted me, the morning long,

With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song,

That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood

I watch'd the little circles die;

They past into the level flood,

And there a vision caught my eye;

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The reflex of a beauteous form,

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck.

For you remember, you had set,
That morning, on the casement-edge
A long green box of mignonette,

And you were leaning from the ledge; And when I raised my eyes, above

They met with two so full and brightSuch eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light.

I loved, and love dispell'd the fear
That I should die an early death;
For love possess'd the atmosphere,
And fill'd the breast with purer breath.
My mother thought, What ails the boy?
For I was alter'd, and began

To move about the house with joy,

And with the certain step of man.

I loved the brimming wave that swam
Thro' quiet meadows round the mill,
The sleepy pool above the dam,

The pool beneath it never still,
The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,

The very air about the door

Made misty with the floating meal.

And oft in ramblings on the wold,
When April nights began to blow,
And April's crescent glimmer'd cold,
I saw the village lights below;
I knew your taper far away,

And full at heart of trembling hope, From off the wold I came, and lay

Upon the freshly-flower'd slope.

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'O mother Ida, many-fountain'❜d Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Hear me, O earth, hear me, O hills, O caves That house the cold crown'd snake! O mountain brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 40
A cloud that gather'd shape; for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

'O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills;
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy dark aloft the mountain pine.
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd,
white-hooved,

Came up from reedy Simois all alone.

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'O mother Ida, harken ere I die. Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft; Far up the solitary morning smote The streaks of virgin snow With downdropt eyes