Look! The seeds of a willow-tree, Falling on grass that must have grown In this one spot for a thousand years! The tossing wind like a gusty sea Over the elder-bushes blown, Over the hollow-foliaged elms, With their orbed shadows in hemispheres, What wild, strange thoughts it brings to me, From what deep reluctant realms! Can Fate itself remember the day When I wandered here from some sea-shore? I saw these elder-bushes, I saw This lonely place -- that tree-trunk grey; I saw the willow-seeds cover the grass -- The grass that has grown for a thousand years! I saw the hollow-foliaged elms, And then, as now, from reluctant realms, Came thoughts that would not pass. What lives we lead -- dear God, what lives! What a palimpsest of double days The Master of our journey gives! Forever round our casual ways Strange omens peer, strange portents wink; And we stand darkly on the brink Of more than mortal mysteries. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET TO TARTAR, A TERRIER BEAUTY by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES FORGIVENESS by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES WHAT THE SONNET IS by EUGENE JACOB LEE-HAMILTON UNREALITY by MERCEDES DE ACOSTA LAURENCE BLOOMFIELD IN IRELAND: 8. THE EVICTION by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM ELLEN BRINE OV ALLENBURN by WILLIAM BARNES |