I DREAMED that you and I were young Once more, and by our old grey sea Raced in the wind; but matins, sung High on these vineyards, wakened me: I lay half-roused and seemed to hold Once more, beside our old grey sea, Your hand. I saw the primrose gold Your hair had then, and seemed to see Your eyes, so childlike and so wise, Look down on me. By the last fire we ever lit You knelt, and bending down your head, —If you could compass it, you said, Not ever would you live again Your vanished life; never again Pass through those shadowy vales of pain. "And now I'm old and here I sit!" You said, and held your hands apart To those old flames we've left behind As far—as far as some dead wind. ... No doubt I fetched from near my heart Brave platitudes—for you were there; The firelight lit your brooding face, Shadowed your golden, glowing hair: I could be brave for the short space I had you by my chair. ... As thus: "Since with the ebb of Youth Rises the flood of passionless And calm enjoyment, rises Truth And fades the painful earnestness Of all young thought, We two," I said, "Have still the best to come." But you Bowed down your brooding, silent head, Patient and sad and still. ... This view, Steep vineyards rising parched and brown, This weary stream, this cobbled town, White convents on each hill-top—Dear! What would I give to climb our down, Where the wind hisses in each stalk And, from the high brown crest to see, Beyond the ancient, sea-grey town, The sky-line of our foam-flecked sea; And, looking out to sea, to hear, Ah! Dear, once more your pleasant talk; And to go home as twilight falls Along the old sea-walls! The best to come! The best! The best! One says the wildest things at times, Merely for comfort. But—@3The best!@1 Ah! well, at night, when the moon climbs High o'er these misty inland capes, And hears the river lisping rhymes, And sees the roe-deer nibbling grapes Beneath the evanescent gleams Of shaken dewdrops, shall come dreams, Gliding amid the mists beneath: A dream, maybe, of you and me, Young once again by our old sea. But, ah! we two must travel wide And far and far ere we shall find That recollected, ancient tide By which we walked, or that old wind That fled so bravely to its death. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BABY MAY by WILLIAM COX BENNETT MADAGASCAR: AUBADE by WILLIAM DAVENANT THE MOWER TO THE GLOW-WORMS by ANDREW MARVELL THE POET'S SONG by ALFRED TENNYSON THE NUANCES OF MENDACITY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS SUMMER NIGHT by KENNETH SLADE ALLING THE ARGONAUTS (ARGONATUICA): MEDEA BETRAYED by APOLLONIUS RHODIUS LINES WRITTEN IN LADY'S ALBUM OF DIFFERENT-COLOURED PAPER by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |