O FIELDS so still and green, That nursed my youth serene! O days of joy untold, All strung with gold! Font-Georges, my natal bed, Where have your robins fled? What distant coppice pales Your nightingales? White-gabled home of mine, Do still the tendrils twine And leaves that interlink Thy teardrops drink? Tree, slanting shadows cool Athwart the crystal pool, Is there one walnut left Within thy cleft? Lithe rivulet and spring, Can ye nepenthe bring Across the stony ways As in past days? Rings still the maidens' song Your purling banks along, Where hands that dip from sight Lave linen white? Eld mountain-ash, thrice gored By heaven's thunderous sword, Hast thou been brought to bow Thy hoary brow? High wood with verdant towers, Where hide thy hazel bowers, Thy stately poplars bowing To west wind's ploughing? Swart vines that clothe the hill, Do ye your clusters spill Down purple staves o'erladen For man and maiden? Doth Autumn's jubilance In rustic mirtll and dance Around the brimming press Lure loveliness? Sweet-attared eglantine, Dost thou from briar and spine Drop flowers of burning red, As acorns shed? Grove with the willows blue, Home me with ring-dove's coo! Melt me with murmuring lyre Sinking in fire! Still, still the cherries gleam! Still in the plashing stream Fair gleaners, unaware, Beauty lay bare. Caves, rocks and winding ways, Fields where the poppies blaze, When I your sweets forget Life's sun shall set. Silent and dusky woods, Childhood's beatitudes, Though I my debt confess Still love you less Less than this sombre dell, Roseless as rugged fell, Less than these mournful yews Dank with night's dews. Here on this brow of sand Love took my idle hand; Urged me with magic words, Tuneful as birds. Here once a radiant guest Sank in my throbbing breast, Kindling, with lips aglow Murmuring low. Pensive and thrilled she lay, Glorious in disarray, Rending a rose's heart, Blind to its smart. Under the moon's white bars, Trembling, the urgent stars Broidered heaven's fleeting bowers Phosphor with flowers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE COW by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON ANONYMOUS by JOHN BANISTER TABB THE ARGONAUTS (ARGONATUICA): HYLAS by APOLLONIUS RHODIUS THE AUTO-DA-FE; A LEGEND OF SPAIN by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM AN AUTUMN TRINKET by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN |