| |
| WITH breath of thyme and bees that hum, | |
| Across the years you seem to come,— | |
| Across the years with nymph-like head, | |
| And wind-blown brows unfilleted; | |
| A girlish shape that slips the bud | 5 |
| In lines of unspoiled symmetry; | |
| A girlish shape that stirs the blood | |
| With pulse of Spring, Autonoë! | |
| |
| Where’er you pass,—where’er you go, | |
| I hear the pebbly rillet flow; | 10 |
| Where’er you go,—where’er you pass, | |
| There comes a gladness on the grass; | |
| You bring blithe airs where’er you tread,— | |
| Blithe airs that blow from down and sea; | |
| You wake in me a Pan not dead,— | 15 |
| Not wholly dead!—Autonoë! | |
| |
| How sweet with you on some green sod | |
| To wreathe the rustic garden-god; | |
| How sweet beneath the chestnut’s shade | |
| With you to weave a basket-braid; | 20 |
| To watch across the stricken chords | |
| Your rosy-twinkling fingers flee; | |
| To woo you in soft woodland words, | |
| With woodland pipe, Autonoë! | |
| |
| In vain,—in vain! The years divide: | 25 |
| Where Thamis rolls a murky tide, | |
| I sit and fill my painful reams, | |
| And see you only in my dreams;— | |
| A vision, like Alcestis, brought | |
| From under-lands of Memory,— | 30 |
| A dream of Form in days of Thought,— | |
| A dream,—a dream, Autonoë! | |
| |
