THE LADY'S WALK.
I know a Manor by the Thames;
I've seen it oft through beechen stems
In leafy Summer weather;
We've moored the punt its lawns beside
Where peacocks strut in flaunting pride,
The Muse and I together.
There I have seen the shadows grow
Gigantic, as the sun sinks low,
Leaving forlorn the dial;
When zephyrs in the borders stir,
Distilling stock and lavender
To fill some fairy's phial.
There, when the dusk joins hands with night,
(I like to think the story's right—
I had it from the Rector—
Still, don't believe unless you choose!)
Doth walk, between the shapen yews,
A little pretty spectre,
The Lady Rose, a well-born maid
Whose true-love in this garden glade—
A bold, if faithless, fellow—
Had loved, but left her for the sake
Of venturing with Frankie Drake,
And died at Puerto Bello;
While she—poor foolish loving Rose—
Of heart-break, so the story goes,
Died very shortly after,
One day—as Art requires—when Spring
Had set the hawthorns blossoming
And waked the lanes to laughter.
And so adown these alleys dim,
Where oft she'd kept a tryst with him,
She nightly comes a-roaming;
And, sorrowing still, yet finds content,
I fancy, where "Sweet Themmes" is blent
With flower-beds and the gloaming.
Ah me, the leaf is down to-day;
Does still the little phantom stray,
Poor pretty ghost, a-shiver,
When sad flowers droop their weary heads
Along the chill Autumnal beds
Beside the misty river?
Or does it, at the year's decline—
As sensible as Proserpine—
When Autumn skies do harden,
Go down and coax the seeds to grow
Till daffodillies stand a-row
And April's in the garden?
I cannot tell; what's more, I doubt
We've other things to think about
This sorrowful November;
I only know for such sad hours
That dainty ghosts and Summer flowers
Are pleasant to remember.