Page:Songs of the Springtides - Swinburne (1880).pdf/84

 Ah, yet my youth was old Its first years dead and cold As last year's autumn's gold, And all my spirit of singing sick and sad and sere, Or ever I might behold The fairest of thy fold Engirt, enringed, enrolled, In all thy flower-sweet flock of islands dear and near.

Yet in my heart I deemed The fairest things, meseemed, Truth, dreaming, ever dreamed, Had made mine eyes already like a god's to see: Of all sea-things that were Clothed on with water and air, That none could live more fair Than thy sweet love long since had shown for love to me.