Untitled

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 rills Float here and there, like things astray, And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

III

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? Beloved! 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 seem 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.

1807.