As, under the boughs that bent,
Now high, now low, she went,
In her soul the ecstasies
Of the stars, the brooks, the breeze,—
Had given the rest of my years,
With their, blessings, and hopes, and fears,
To have been as she was then;
And, just for a moment, again
A boy in the old rope-swing
Under the boughs of spring.
TO AUTUMN
I feel thee as one feels a flower’s,
A dead flower’s fragrance in a room,—
A dim, gray grief that haunts the hours
With sad perfume.
Thou charm’st me as a ghostly lily
Might charm a garden’s withered space,
With the pale pathos and the chilly
Hush of thy face.
I hearken in thy fogs; I hearken
When, like the phantom of dead Night,
With immaterial limbs they darken
The day with white.