Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/323

 And knew not what this dream was nor had wit; But now God knows if I have skill of it." Hereat she laid one palm against her lips To stop their trembling; as when water slips Out of a beak-mouthed vessel with faint noise And chuckles in the narrowed throat and cloys The carven rims with murmuring, so came Words in her lips with no word right of them, A beaten speech thick and disconsolate, Till his smile ceasing waxed compassionate Of her sore fear that grew from anything— The sound of the strong summer thickening In heated leaves of the smooth apple-trees: The day's breath felt about the ash-branches, And noises of the noon whose weight still grew On the hot heavy-headed flowers, and drew Their red mouths open till the rose-heart ached; For eastward all the crowding rose was slaked And soothed with shade; but westward all its growth Seemed to breathe hard with heat as a man doth Who feels his temples newly feverous. And even with such motion in her brows As that man hath in whom sick days begin, She turned her throat and spake, her voice being thin As a sick man's, sudden and tremulous; "Sweet, if this end be come indeed on us, Let us love more;" and held his mouth with hers. As the first sound of flooded hill-waters