| |
| THROUGH the land low-lying, fast and free | |
| I ride alone and under the moon; | |
| An empty road that is strange to me, | |
| Yet at every turn remembered soon: | |
| A road like a racecourse, even and wide, | 5 |
| With grassy margins on either side; | |
| In a rapture of blowing air I ride, | |
| With a heart that is beating tune. | |
| |
| Light as on turf the hoof-beats fall, | |
| As on spongy sod as fast and fleet, | 10 |
| For the road is smooth and moist withal, | |
| And the water springs under the horse’s feet; | |
| And to every stride sounds a soft plash yet, | |
| For all the length of the way is wet | |
| With many a runnel and rivulet | 15 |
| That under the moonlight meet. | |
| |
| O surely the water lilies should be | |
| Sunk away and safe folded to rest! | |
| But, no; they are shining open and free, | |
| White and awake on the water’s breast: | 20 |
| On the long and shimmering waterway, | |
| All silver-spread to the full moon’s ray, | |
| The shallow dykes that straggle and stray | |
| With their floating fringes drest. | |
| |
| The road will flow winding and winding away | 25 |
| Through the sleeping country to-night; | |
| All one long level of dusky grey, | |
| The border hedges slip past in flight; | |
| Turning and twisting in many a lane, | |
| Mile after mile of a labyrinth chain | 30 |
| I have seen before, I shall see again, | |
| Yet remember not aright. | |
| |
| And somewhere all out of sight there stands | |
| A sleeping house that is white and low, | |
| Hid in the heart of the level lands, | 35 |
| The lands where the waters wander slow, | |
| Embowered all round by the thickset ways, | |
| Set in a silent and stately maze | |
| Of high-grown ilex, arbutus, bays,— | |
| If I ever saw it, I do not know. | 40 |
| |
| Shall I ever reach it? or ere the day | |
| Breaks, will it all have passed away? | |
| If only the night might last! | |
| While the mists of moonlight the warm air fill, | |
| Out of boskage and bower so deep and still | 45 |
| There reaches afar the glimmer, the thrill,— | |
| O the night is flying too fast! | |
| |
