A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in the head From some odd corner of the brain. It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times. Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood And there a vision caught my eye; For you remember, you had set, A long green box of mignonette, And you were leaning from the ledge : And when I raised my eyes, above They met with two so full and bright Such eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light. I loved, and love dispelled the fear And filled the breast with purer breath. My mother thought, What ails the boy? For I was altered, and began To move about the house with joy, I loved the brimming wave that swam Through quiet meadows round the mill, The sleepy pool above the dam, The pool beneath it never still, The meal-sacks on the whitened floor, The dark round of the dripping wheel, The very air about the door Made misty with the floating meal. And oft in ramblings on the wold, I knew your taper far away, And full at heart of trembling hope, From off the wold I came, and lay Upon the freshly-flowered slope. The deep brook groaned beneath the mill; Gleamed to the flying moon by fits. "O that I were beside her now! Sometimes I saw you sit and spin; Sometimes your shadow crossed the blind; At last you rose and moved the light, And the long shadow of the chair Flitted across into the night, And all the casement darkened there. But when at last I dared to speak, The lanes, you know, were white with May; Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek Flushed like the coming of the day; And so it was half-sly, half-shy, You would, and would not, little one! Although I pleaded tenderly, And you and I were all alone. And slowly was my mother brought And down I went to fetch my bride: I knew you could not look but well; And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, I kissed away before they fell. I watched the little flutterings, The doubt my mother would not see: As near this door you sat apart, Approaching, pressed you heart to heart. Ah, well - but sing the foolish song I gave you, Alice, on the day When, arm in arm, we went along, A pensive pair, and you were gay With bridal flowers — that I may seem, As in the nights of old, to lie Beside the mill-wheel in the stream, While those full chestnuts whisper by. It is the miller's daughter, And she is grown so dear, so dear, That I would be the jewel That trembles at her ear: For, hid in ringlets day and night, I'd touch her neck so warm and white. And I would be the girdle About her dainty, dainty waist, And her heart would beat against me, In sorrow and in rest: And I should know if it beat right, I'd clasp it round so close and tight. And I would be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs, |