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| OLD MAN, or Lad’s-love—in the name there’s nothing | |
| To one that knows not Lad’s-love, or Old Man: | |
| The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree, | |
| Growing with rosemary and lavender. | |
| Even to one that knows it well, the names | 5 |
| Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: | |
| At least, what that is clings not to the name | |
| In spite of time. And yet I like the names. | |
| |
| The herb itself I like not, but for certain | |
| I love it, as some day the child will love it | 10 |
| Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush | |
| Whenever she goes in or out of the house. | |
| Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivelling | |
| The shreds at last on to the path, perhaps | |
| Thinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs | 15 |
| Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still | |
| But half as tall as she, though it is as old— | |
| So well she clips it. Not a word she says; | |
| And I can only wonder how much hereafter | |
| She will remember, with that bitter scent, | 20 |
| Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees | |
| Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door, | |
| A low thick bush beside the door, and me | |
Forbidding her to pick.
As for myself, | |
| Where first I met the bitter scent, is lost. | 25 |
| I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds, | |
| Sniff them and think and sniff again, and try | |
| Once more to think what it is I am remembering | |
| Always in vain. I cannot like the scent, | |
| Yet I would rather give up others more sweet, | 30 |
| With no meaning, than this bitter one. | |
| |
| I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray | |
| And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing; | |
| Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait | |
| For what I should, yet never can, remember: | 35 |
| No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush | |
| Of Lad’s-love, or Old Man, no child beside, | |
| Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate; | |
| Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end. | |
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