I THOUGHT of cottages nigh brooks Whose aspens loved to shine and swirl, Of chubby babies' wondering looks Above the doorboards, and the girl Who blossomed like the morning sky, With clear light like a lily made; She dipt her bucket and went by, Where bright the unwithering water played. No water ever ran so blithe As that same mill-tail stream, I'd say, And life as laughing danced as lithe And twinkled on as many a day. The wonder seemed that summer waned, So full it filled the giant sphere, But skulls chill on where warm blood reigned And even such summers must grow sere. I heard the bell brag on the west And whisper on the eastern wind, And hated how it found the nest That Time was never meant to find: Through many an afternoon blue-hung Like sultry smoke with drowsy heat There came the bell-cote's scheming tongue Till gipsy-boys that slouched down street With roach on withy rods impaled Had flown, and swallows met to fly, And yellow light and leaves prevailed And trouble roved the evening sky. But spite of ghosts who shook their hair In clouds and stalked through darker plains, Still to the wood bridge I'd repair Ere autumn palsied into rains. The fish turned over in the shoal, A flash of summer! then came she, Who when green leaves were lapping cool So like a lily dazzled me; Her basketful of mushrooms got, She passed, she called me by my name, And now whole myriads are forgot But kindly Nell will seem the same Down to my death! Long tarry, Sun, That shone upon us two that day, And autumn's honey breath live on The last sighed air that leaves me clay! -- Clay! clay! the packing bullets mocked And split the breastwork by my head, And into aching senses shocked I gave Stand-To! the east was red. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONRAD AT TWILIGHT by JOHN CROWE RANSOM IDYLLS OF THE KING: PELLEAS AND ETTARRE by ALFRED TENNYSON AS THE GREEK'S SIGNAL FLAME by WALT WHITMAN ODE TO DUTY by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE IMMOLATION by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN HOMUNCULUS IN PENUMBRA by GORDON BOTTOMLEY THE GOLDEN ISLAND: ARRAN FROM AYR by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK |