Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

William Morris (1834–1896)

Extracts from Poems by the Way: Young Love

IT was many a day that we laughed,

as over the meadows we walked,

And many a day I hearkened

and the pictures came as he talked;

It was many a day that we longed,

and we lingered late at eve

Ere speech from speech was sundered,

and my hand his hand could leave.

Then I wept when I was alone,

and I longed till the daylight came;

And down the stairs I stole,

and there was our housekeeping dame

(No mother of me, the foundling)

kindling the fire betimes

Ere the haymaking folk went forth

to the meadows down by the limes;

All things I saw at a glance;

the quickening fire-tongues leapt

Through the crackling heap of sticks,

and the sweet smoke up from it crept,

And close to the very hearth

the low sun flooded the floor,

And the cat and her kittens played

in the sun by the open door.

The garden was fair in the morning,

and there in the road he stood

Beyond the crimson daisies

and the bush of southernwood.