Through the glowing meadows aflame
With buttercup gold I came
To the green, still heart of the wood.
A wood-pigeon cooed and cooed,
The hazel-stems grew close,
Like leaves round the heart of a rose,
Round the still, green nest that I chose.
Then I gathered the bracken that grew
In a fairy forest all round,
And I laid it in heaps on the ground
With grass and blossoms and leaves.
I gathered the summer in sheaves,
And pale, rare roses a few,
And spread out a carpet meet
For the touch of my lady's feet.
I waited; the wood was still;
Only one little brown bird
On a hazel swayed and stirred
With the impulse of his song;
And I waited, and time was long.
Then I heard a step on the grass
In the path where the others pass,
And a voice like a voice in a dream;
And I saw a glory, a gleam,
A flash of white through the green
(Her arms and her gown are white);
And the summer sighed her name
As she and the sunshine came:
O sun and blue sky and delight!
O eyes and lips of my queen!