Page:Poems and ballads (IA balladspoems00swinrich).pdf/66

 For witness in winter's sight How lovers once in the light Would mix their breath with its breath, And its spirit was quenched not of night, As love is subdued not of death.

In the red-rose land not a mile Of the meadows from stile to stile, Of the valleys from stream to stream, But the air was a long sweet dream And the earth was a sweet wide smile Red-mouthed of a goddess, returned From the sea which had borne her and burned, That with one swift smile of her mouth Looked full on the north as it yearned, And the north was more than the south.

For the north, when winter was long, In his heart had made him a song,