I will not let thee go. The stars that crowd the summer skies With all their million eyes, I will not let thee go. Have we not chid the changeful moon, Now rising late, and now I will not let thee go. Have not the young flowers been content, Plucked ere their buds could blow, To seal our sacrament? I cannot let thee go. I will not let thee go. I hold thee by too many bands: 8 I FOUND to-day out walking The flower my love loves best. What, when I stooped to pluck it, Could dare my hand arrest? Was it a snake lay curling About the root's thick crown? There was no snake uncurling, 9 A POPPY grows upon the shore, Oft to her cousins turns her thought, Is fed with spray for dew, and caught She has no lovers like the red, Her blossoms on the waves are shed, ΙΟ SOMETIMES when my lady sits by me My mind from the thought that she's nigh me, That I shut to my eyes, and assay I I LONG are the hours the sun is above, But when evening comes I go home to my love. I'm away the daylight hours and more, She does not meet me upon the stair,— She sits in my chamber and waits for me there. As I enter the room she does not move : And she lets me take my wonted place Aching and hot as my tired eyes be, And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear, In rest and enjoyment of love's delight. But a knock at the door, a step on the stair If a stranger comes she will not stay: At the first alarm she is off and away. And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne, That I sit so much by myself alone. I 2 WHO has not walked upon the shore, The hour the wind has ceased to blow? The horses of the strong south-west The frightened birds, that fled inland Whereon the timid ships steal out The snow-white clouds he northward chased From distant hills their shadows creep, And sail and sail far out of sight. I told it to the trees, And to the flowers confest, And said not one of these Is like my lily drest; I shouted to the sea, And as in happy mood |