Page:The New Penelope.djvu/339

Rh For the gay gold of the bright buttercup

Spangling the green sod on the other side—

For the lake's breadth was but an arrow's flight,

And the brief distance did not serve to hide

What yet could not be reached except by sight.

Day after day I dreamed there, while my heart

Gathered up knowledge in its childish way,

Making fine pictures with unconscious art,

And learning beauty more and more each day.

Ever and ever haunted I that spot—

Sitting in dells scooped out between the hills,

That rising close around me, formed a grot

Fragrant with ferns, and musical with rills.

Far up above me grew the long-armed beech,

Dropping its branches down in graceful bent;

While farther up, beyond my utmost reach,

Stood dusky hemlocks, crowning the ascent.

And all about were sweeter sights and sounds

Than elsewhere, but in poet's dream, abounds.

Thus, and because my life was all too fair,

I sought to color it with thoughts I nursed

In sylvan solitudes: and in the air

Of these soft, silent influences, I first

Saw, or felt, rather, that the shadow fell

Upon my pathway from the light behind—

The light of youth's first joyousness. Ah, well,

If it had stayed there, nor been more unkind!

My earliest sorrow was a flower's death—

At which I wept until my swollen eyes

Refused to shed more tears—just that my wreath

One morn in autumn lacked its choicest dyes.

So, knowing what it was to have a loss,

I went on losing, and the shadow grew

Darker and longer, 'till it lies across