ASSOCIATIONS by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON

YOU know the place is just the same!
The rooks build here: the sandy hill is
Ablaze with broom, as when she came
Across the sea with her new name
To dwell among the moated lilies.

The trifoly is on the walls:
The daisies in the bowling-alley:
The ox at eve lows from the stalls:
At eve the cuckoo, floating, calls,
When foxgloves tremble in the valley.

The iris blows from court to court:
The bald white spider flits, or stays in
The chinks behind the dragonwort:
That Triton still, at his old sport,
Blows bubbles in his broken basin.

The terrace where she used to walk
Still shines at noon between the roses:
The garden paths are blind with chalk:
The dragon-fly from stalk to stalk
Swims sparkling blue till evening closes.

Then, just above that long dark copse,
One warmred star comes out, and passes
Westward, and mounts, and mounts, and stops
(Or seems to) o'er the turret-tops,
And lights those lonely casement-glasses.

Sir Ralph still wears that old grim smile.
The staircase creaks as up I clamber
To those still rooms, to muse awhile.
I see the little meadow-stile
As I lean from the great south-chamber.

And Lady Ruth is just as white.
(Ah, still, that face seems strangely like her!)
The lady and the wicked knight --
All just the same -- she swooned for fright --
And he -- his arm still raised to strike her.

Her boudoir -- no one enters there:
The very flowers which last she gathered
Are in the vase; the lute -- the chair --
And all things -- just as then they were!
Except the jasmins, -- those are withered.

But when along the corridors
The last red pause of day is streaming,
I seem to hear her up the floors:
I seem to see her through the doors:
And then I know that I am dreaming.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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