I NEVER saw that land before, And now can never see it again Yet, as if
by acquaintance hoar Endeared, by gladness and by pain, Great was the
affection that I bore To the valley and the river small, The cattle, the
grass, the bare ash trees, The chickens from the farmsteads, all
Elm-hidden, and the tributaries Descending at equal interval The
blackthorns down along the brook With wounds yellow as crocuses Where
yesterday the labourers hook Had sliced them cleanly and the breeze That
hinted all and nothing spoke. I neither expected anything Nor yet
remembered but some goal I touched then and if I could sing What would
not even whisper my sul As I went on my journeying, I should use, as the
trees and birds did, A language not to be betrayed And what was hid
should still be hid Excepting from those like me made Who answer when
such whispers bid. DARK is the forest and deep, and overhead Hang stars
like seeds of light In vain, though not since they were sown was bred
Anything more bright. And evermore mighty multitudes ride About, nor
enter in Of the other multitudes that dwell inside Never yet was one
seen. The forest foxglove is purple, the- marguerite Outside is gold and
white, Nor can those that pluck either blossom greet The others, day or
night. CELANDINE THINKING of her had saddened me at first, Until I saw
the sun on the celandines lie Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame,
A living thing, not what before I nursed, The shadow I was growing to
love almost, The phantom, not the creature with bright eye That I had
thought, never to see, once lost. She found the celandines of February
Always before us all. Her nature and name Were like those flowers, and
now immediately For a short swift eternity back she came, Beautiful,
happy, simply as when she wore Her brightest bloom among the winter hues
Of all the world and I was happy too, Seeing the blossoms and the maiden
who Had seen them with me Februarys before, Bending to them as in and
out she trod And laughed, with locks sweeping the mossy sod. But this
was a dream the flowers were not true, Until I stooped to pluck from the
grass there One of five petals and I smelt the juice Which made me sigh,
remembering she was no more, Gone like a never perfectly recalled air...
