I.
How warm this woodland wild Recess! Love surely hath been breathing here; And this sweet bed of heath, my dear!
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress, As if to have you yet more near.
II.
Eight springs have flown, since last I lay On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills, Where quiet sounds from hidden
Float hear and there, like things astray, And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.
II.
No voice as yet had made the air Be music with your name; yet why That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where? Belovéd! flew your spirit by?
IV.
As when a mother doth explore The rose-mark on her long-lost child, I met,
I loved you, maiden mild!
As whom I long had loved before-- So deeply had I been beguiled.
V.
You stood before me like a thought, A dream remembered in a dream. But when those meek eyes first did
To tell me,
Love within you wrought-- O Greta, dear domestic stream!
VI.
Has not, since then,
Love's prompture deep, Has not Love's whisper evermore Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar?
Sole voice, when other voices sleep, Dear under-song in clamor's hour.
Sibylline Leaves II:
Love Poems.
