Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/249

 By the stream where the stems were slender, Your bright foot paused at the sedge; It might be to watch the tender Light leaves in the springtime hedge,

On boughs that the sweet month blanches With flowery frost of May: It might be a bird in the branches, It might be a thorn in the way.

I waited to watch you linger With foot drawn back from the dew, Till a sunbeam straight like a finger Struck sharp through the leaves at you.

And a bird overhead sang Follow, And a bird to the right sang Here; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.

I saw where the sun’s hand pointed, I knew what the bird’s note said; By the dawn and the dewfall anointed, You were queen by the gold on your head.

As the glimpse of a burnt-out ember Recalls a regret of the sun, I remember, forget, and remember What Love saw done and undone.