I know you: solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonized hopes, and ashen flowers!
The winds are sometimes sad to me;
The starry spaces, full of fear:
Mine is the sorrow on the sea,
And mine the sigh of places drear.
Some players upon plaintive strings
Publish their wistfulness abroad:
I have not spoken of these things,
Save to one man, and unto God.
1893.
HILL AND VALE.
Not on the river plains
Wilt thou breathe loving air,
O mountain spirit fine!
Here the calm soul maintains
Calm: but no joy like thine,
On hill-tops bleak and bare,
Whose breath is fierce and rare.
Were beauty all thy need,
Here were an haunt for thee.
The broad laborious weald,
An eye's delight indeed,
Spreads from rich field to field:
And full streams wander free
Under the alder tree.
Throw thee upon the grass,
The daisied grass, and gaze
Far to the warm blue mist:
Feel, how the soft hours pass
Over, before they wist,
Into whole day: and days
Dream on in sunny haze.
Each old, sweet, country scent
Comes, as old music might
Upon thee: old, sweet sounds
Go, as they ever went,
Over the red corn grounds:
Still sweeping scythes delight
Charmed hearing and charmed sight
Gentle thy life would be:
To watch at morning dew
Fresh water-lilies: tell,
How bears the walnut tree:
Find the first foxglove bell,
Spare the last harebell blue:
And wander the wold through.