To Alice Meynell
Lady, through grasses stiff with rime
And wraith-hung trees I wander
Where the red sun at pitch of prime
Half of his might must squander;
Narrow the track
As I look back
On traces green behind me,—
I go alone
To think upon
A face, where none
Shall find me.
Birds peal; but each grim grove its shroud
Retains, as to betoken
Though the young lawn should wave off cloud
These would have Night unbroken,—
Desire no plash
Of the Lake awash—
No gold but gold that’s glinted
In still device
From the breast of ice
Whose summer cries
Have stinted.
But in a great and glittering space
The black Elm doth restore me
To you. Empower’d with patient grace
Musing she stands before me,—
Her webs divine
Ghosted with fine
Remembrance few can capture;
Her very shade
On greenness laid
Is white,—is made
Of rapture!