Return and go again and yet return! No stealthy steps will startle these sad trees To whisper love, no ambush set will snare Her tender words lost on a jealous breeze. Regard the violet, the green, the stone! This scene suffices memory, this glade Repeats the stage that knew my ecstasy Which neither time nor reason has betrayed. Here, here was happiness; the seasons' rains Have sunk into the moss and wrought no change, Nor has my love despaired of years that show My dearest wish impoverished and strange. Such constancy, whose hope took root in stone, At last is disciplined in pain, nor past, Nor measured now in wild protests of years Sore levied for old debts too few hours massed. Were then this denser bush to part and pass The woman she became -- or should now be -- Something distilled in immortality Would rise to parch my throat -- and I would flee. |