Page:Early poems of William Morris.djvu/191

 Her lips are drier now she is

A great duke's wife these many years,

They will not shudder with a kiss

As once they did, being moist with tears.

Also her hands have lost that way

Of clinging that they used to have;

They look'd quite easy, as they lay

Upon the silken cushions brave

With broidery of the apples green

My Lord Duke bears upon his shield.

Her face, alas! that I have seen

Look fresher than an April field,

This is all gone now; gone also

Her tender walking; when she walks

She is most queenly I well know,

And she is fair still:—as the stalks

Of faded summer-lilies are.

So is she grown now unto me

This spring-time, when the flowers star

The meadows, birds sing wonderfully.

I warrant once she used to cling

About his neck, and kiss'd him so,

And then his coming step would ring

Joy-bells for her,—some time ago.

Ah! sometimes like an idle dream

That hinders true life overmuch,

Sometimes like a lost heaven, these seem—

This love is not so hard to smutch.