Threading its noiseless way among fair things
Love-chosen to make beautiful my room,
The ivy spreads its tender living gloom,
Darkening and brightening the wall; now clings
Closely around some picture, and now swings
Some airy shoot of tremulous young bloom
Into the freer sunlight; till the doom
Of their slow silent fate together brings
At last the branches that for long years went
Their single, separate ways. Did no swift thrill
Of subtle recognition flash, and fill
Their veins? Oh Ivy, still must we lament
Thou canst not with our joy in thee have part,
And thyself know how fair a thing thou art!