| |
| NATURE and he went ever hand in hand | |
| Across the hills and down the lonely lane; | |
| They captured starry shells upon the strand | |
| And lay enchanted by the musing main. | |
| So She, who loved him for his love of her, | 5 |
| Made him the heir to traceries and signs | |
| On tiny children nigh too small to stir | |
| In great green plains of hazel leaf or vines. | |
| She taught the trouble of the nightingale; | |
| Revealed the velvet secret of the rose; | 10 |
| She breathed divinity into his heart, | |
| That rare divinity of watching those | |
| Slow growths that make a nettle learn to dart | |
| The puny poison of its little throes. | |
| |
| Her miracles motion, butterflies, | 15 |
| Rubies and sapphires skimming lily-crests, | |
| Carved on a yellow petal with their eye | |
| Tranced by the beauty of their powdered breasts, | |
| Seen in the mirror of a drop of dew, | |
| He loved as friends and as a friend he knew. | 20 |
| The dust of gold and scarlet underwings | |
| More precious was to him than nuggets torn | |
| From all invaded treasure-crypts of time, | |
| And every floating, painted, silver beam | |
| Drew him to roses where it stayed to dream, | 25 |
| Or down sweet avenues of scented lime. | |
| |
| And Nature trained him tenderly to know | |
| The rain of melodies in coverts heard. | |
| Let him but catch the cadences that flow | |
| From hollybush or lilac, elm or sloe, | 30 |
| And he would mate the music with the bird. | |
| The faintest song a redstart ever sang | |
| Was redstart’s piping, and the whitethroat knew | |
| No cunning trill, no mazy shake that rang | |
| Doubtful on ears unaided by the view. | 35 |
| |
| But in his glory, as a young pure priest | |
| In that great temple, only roofed by stars, | |
| An angel hastened from the sacred East | |
| To reap the wisest and to leave the least. | |
| And as he moaned upon the couch of death, | 40 |
| Breathing away his little share of breath, | |
| All suddenly he sprang upright in bed! | |
| Life, like a ray, poured fresh into his face, | |
| Flooding the hollow cheeks with passing grace. | |
| He listened long, then pointed up above; | 45 |
| Laughed a low laugh of boundless joy and love— | |
| That was a plover called he softly said, | |
| And on his wife’s breast fell, serenely dead! | |
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