Eight wedding-days gone by, and none Yet kept, to keep them all in one, Jane and myself, with John and Grace On donkeys, visited the place I first drew breath in, Knatchley Wood. Bearing the basket, stuff'd with food, Milk, loaves, hard eggs, and marmalade, I halted where the wandering glade Divides the thicket. There I knew, It seem'd, the very drops of dew Below the unalter'd eglantine. Nothing had changed since I was nine! In the green desert, down to eat We sat, our rustic grace at meat Good appetite, through that long climb Hungry two hours before the time. And there Jane took her stitching out, And John for birds'-nests pry'd about, And Grace and Baby, in between The warm blades of the breathing green, Dodged grasshoppers; and I no less, In conscientious idleness, Enjoy'd myself, under the noon Stretch'd, and the sounds and sights of June Receiving, with a drowsy charm, Through muffled ear and folded arm. And then, as if I sweetly dream'd, I half-remember'd how it seem'd When I, too, was a little child About the wild wood roving wild. Pure breezes from the far-off height Melted the blindness from my sight, Until, with rapture, grief, and awe, I saw again as then I saw. As then I saw, I saw again The harvest-waggon in the lane, With high-hung tokens of its pride Left in the elms on either side; The daisies coming out at dawn In constellations on the lawn; The glory of the daffodil; The three black windmills on the hill, Whose magic arms, flung wildly by, Sent magic shadows o'er the rye. Within the leafy coppice, lo, More wealth than miser's dreams could show, The blackbird's warm and woolly brood, Five golden beaks agape for food; The Gipsies, all the summer seen Native as poppies to the Green; The winter, with its frosts and thaws And opulence of hips and haws; The lovely marvel of the snow; The Tamar, with its altering show Of gay ships sailing up and down, Among the fields and by the Town; And, dearer far than anything, Came back the songs you used to sing. (Ah, might you sing such songs again, And I, your child, but hear as then, With conscious profit of the gulf Flown over from my present self!) And, as to men's retreating eyes, Beyond high mountains higher rise, Still farther back there shone to me The dazzling dusk of infancy. Thither I look'd, as, sick of night, The Alpine shepherd looks to the height, And does not see the day, 'tis true, But sees the rosy tops that do. Meantime Jane stitch'd, and fann'd the flies From my repose, with hush'd replies To Grace, and smiles when Baby fell. Her countenance love visible Appear'd, love audible her voice. Why in the past alone rejoice, Whilst here was wealth before me cast Which, I could feel, if 'twere but past Were then most precious? Question vain, When ask'd again and yet again, Year after year; yet now, for no Cause, but that heaven's bright winds will blow Not at our pray'r but as they list, It brought that distant, golden mist To grace the hour, firing the deep Of spirit and the drowsy keep Of joy, till, spreading uncontain'd, The holy power of seeing gain'd The outward eye, this owning even That where there's love and truth there's heaven. Debtor to few, forgotten hours Am I, that truths for me are powers. Ah, happy hours, 'tis something yet Not to forget that I forget! And now a cloud, bright, huge and calm, Rose, doubtful if for bale or balm; O'ertoppling towers and bulwarks bright Appear'd, at beck of viewless might, Along a rifted mountain range. Untraceable and swift in change, Those glittering peaks, disrupted, spread To solemn bulks, seen overhead; The sunshine quench'd, from one dark form Fumed the appalling light of storm. Straight to the zenith, black with bale, The Gipsies' smoke rose deadly pale; And one wide night of hopeless hue Hid from the heart the recent blue. And soon, with thunder crackling loud, A flash reveal'd the formless cloud: Lone sailing rack, far wavering rim, And billowy tracts of stormland dim. We stood, safe group'd beneath a shed. Grace hid behind Jane's gown for dread, Who told her, fondling with her hair, 'The naughty noise! but God took care Of all good girls.' John seem'd to me Too much for Jane's theology, Who bade him watch the tempest. Now A blast made all the woodland bow; Against the whirl of leaves and dust Kine dropp'd their heads; the tortured gust Jagg'd and convuls'd the ascending smoke To mockery of the lightning's stroke. The blood prick'd, and a blinding flash And close coinstantaneous crash Humbled the soul, and the rain all round Resilient dimm'd the whistling ground, Nor flagg'd in force from first to last, Till, sudden as it came, 'twas past, Leaving a trouble in the copse Of brawling birds and tinkling drops. Change beyond hope! Far thunder faint Mutter'd its vast and vain complaint, And gaps and fractures, fringed with light, Show'd the sweet skies, with squadrons bright Of cloudlets, glittering calm and fair Through gulfs of calm and glittering air. With this adventure, we return'd. The roads the feet no longer burn'd. A wholesome smell of rainy earth Refresh'd our spirits, tired of mirth. The donkey-boy drew friendly near My Wife, and, touch'd by the kind cheer Her countenance show'd, or sooth'd perchance By the soft evening's sad advance, As we were, stroked the flanks and head Of the ass, and, somewhat thick-voiced, said, 'To 'ave to wop the donkeys so ''Ardens the 'art, but they wont go 'Without!' My Wife, by this impress'd, As men judge poets by their best, When now we reach'd the welcome door, Gave him his hire, and sixpence more. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE TEN COMMANDMENTS by GEORGE SANTAYANA PARADISI GLORIA by THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS THE DEATH OF LYON by HENRY PETERSON THE IVORY GATE: DIRGE by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE KING OF YVETOT by PIERRE JEAN DE BERANGER ECHOES OF SPRING: 10 by MATHILDE BLIND |