The Brook-Side by Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton, 1st Baron. Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. 1895. A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

The Brook-Side

Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton, 1st Baron (1809–85)


I WANDER’D by the brook-side,
I wander’d by the mill;
I could not hear the brook flow,
The noisy wheel was still;
There was no burr of grasshopper,	5
No chirp of any bird,
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

I sat beneath the elm-tree;
I watch’d the long, long shade,	10
And, as it grew still longer,
I did not feel afraid;
For I listen’d for a footfall,
I listen’d for a word,
But the beating of my own heart	15
Was all the sound I heard.

He came not,—no, he came not—
The night came on alone,
The little stars sat, one by one,
Each on his golden throne;	20
The evening wind pass’d by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirr’d,
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.

Fast silent tears were flowing,	25
When something stood behind;
A hand was on my shoulder,
I knew its touch was kind:
It drew me nearer—nearer,
We did not speak one word,	30
For the beating of our own hearts
Was all the sound we heard.