A Winter Song

To Alice Meynell

Lady, through grasses stiff with rime And wraith-hung trees I wander Where the red sun at pitch of prime Half of his might must squander; Narrow the track As I look back On traces green behind me,— I go alone To think upon A face, where none Shall find me.

Birds peal; but each grim grove its shroud Retains, as to betoken Though the young lawn should wave off cloud These would have Night unbroken,— Desire no plash Of the Lake awash— No gold but gold that’s glinted In still device From the breast of ice Whose summer cries Have stinted.

But in a great and glittering space The black Elm doth restore me To you. Empower’d with patient grace Musing she stands before me,— Her webs divine Ghosted with fine Remembrance few can capture; Her very shade On greenness laid Is white,—is made Of rapture!