- Far in a western brookland
- That bred me long ago
- The poplars stand and tremble
- By pools I used to know.
- There, in the windless night-time,
- The wanderer, marvelling why,
- Halts on the bridge to hearken
- How soft the poplars sigh.
- He hears: no more remembered
- In fields where I was known,
- Here I lie down in London
- And turn to rest alone.
- There, by the starlit fences,
- The wanderer halts and hears
- My soul that lingers sighing
- About the glimmering weirs.

- LIII -
THE TRUE LOVER
- The lad came to the door at night,
- When lovers crown their vows,
- And whistled soft and out of sight
- In shadow of the boughs.
- "I shall not vex you with my face
- Henceforth, my love, for aye;
- So take me in your arms a space
- Before the cast is grey.
- "When I from hence away am past
- I shall not find a bride,
- And you shall be the first and last
- I ever lay beside."
- She heard and went and knew not why;
- Her heart to his she laid;
- Light was the air beneath the sky
- But dark under the shade.
- "Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast
- Seems not to rise and fall,
- And here upon my bosom prest
- There beats no heart at all?"
- "Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock,
- You should have felt it then;
- But since for you I stopped the clock
- It never goes again."
- "Oh lad, what is it, lad, that drips
- Wet from your neck on mine?
- What is it falling on my lips,
- My lad, that tastes of brine?"
- "Oh like enough 'tis blood, my dear,
- For when the knife was slit,
- The throat across from ear to ear
- 'Twill bleed because of it."
- Under the stars the air was light
- But dark below the boughs,
- The still air of the speechless night,
- When lovers crown their vows.

- With rue my heart is laden
- For golden friends I had,
- For many a rose-lipt maiden
- And many a lightfoot lad.
- By brooks too broad for leaping
- The lightfoot boys are laid;
- The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
- In fields where roses fade.