Versos English William Morris Giles

English poem

Giles

by (1834–1896)

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And yet this night of all the year Happier alone perchance they were, And better so belike would seem The glorious lovers of the dream: So let them dream on lip to lip: Yet will I gain his fellowship Ere many days be o'er my head, And they shall rest them in our stead; And there we four awhile shall dwell As though the world were nought but well, And that old time come back again When nought in all the earth had pain. The sun through lime-boughs where we dine Upon my father's cup shall shine; The vintage of the river-bank, That ten years since the sunbeams drank, Shall fill the mazer bowl carved o'er With naked shepherd-folk of yore. Dainty should seem worse fare than ours As o'er the close-thronged garden flowers The wind comes to us, and the bees Complain overhead mid honey-trees.