By My Side All Day Another Went

By my side all day another went. We breathed the cold spiced air of the Spring dark Before the dawn; together at the hark Of noon we listened; and we bent To borrow from still grasses the warm scent Of afternoon and dusk. We stood to mark The deathless ark Unveiled before the light was spent.

Prodigal of sweetness that old day I passed, nor might See how that one beside me stooped to lay Something aside. Now in the night The gleaner hunts me down Bringing regret. I wear it for a crown.

IN J. P. P.’s METRE