She delays, meditating.

Sad skies and a foggy rain Dripping from streaming eaves; Over and over again Dead drop of the trickling leaves; And the woodward winding lane, And the hill with its shocks of sheaves, One scarce perceives.

Must I go in such sad weather By the lane or over the hill? Where the splitting milk-weed's feather Dim, diamond-like rain-drops fill? Or where, ten stars together, Buff ox-eyes rank the rill By the old corn-mill?

The creek by this is swollen, And its foaming cascades sound; And the lilies, smeared with pollen, In the race look dull and drowned;— 'T is the path we oft have stolen To the bridge, that rambles round With willows crowned.

Through a bottom wild with berry Or packed with the iron-weeds, With their blue combs washed and very Purple; the sorghum meads Glint green near a wilding cherry; Where the high wild-lettuce seeds The fenced path leads.

A bird in the rain beseeches; And the balsams' budding balls Smell drenched by the way which reaches The wood where the water falls; Where the warty water-beeches Hang leaves one blister of galls, The mill-wheel drawls.

My shawl instead of a bonnet!... Though the wood be soaking yet Through the wet to the rock I 'll run it— How sweet to meet in the wet!— Our rock with the vine upon it, Each flower a fiery jet—... He won't forget!