| |
| SHE wanders in the April woods, | |
| That glisten with the fallen shower; | |
| She leans her face against the buds, | |
| She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower. | |
| She feels the ferment of the hour: | 5 |
| She broodeth when the ringdove broods; | |
| The sun and flying clouds have power | |
| Upon her cheek and changing moods. | |
| She cannot think she is alone, | |
| As over her senses warmly steal | 10 |
| Floods of unrest she fears to own | |
| And almost dreads to feel. | |
| |
| Among the summer woodlands wide | |
| Anew she roams, no more alone; | |
| The joy she feared is at her side, | 15 |
| Spring’s blushing secret now is known. | |
| The primrose and its mates have flown, | |
| The thrush’s ringing note hath died; | |
| But glancing eye and glowing tone | |
| Fall on her from her god, her guide. | 20 |
| She knows not, asks not, what the goal, | |
| She only feels she moves towards bliss, | |
| And yields her pure unquestioning soul | |
| To touch and fondling kiss. | |
| |
| And still she haunts those woodland ways, | 25 |
| Though all fond fancy finds there now | |
| To mind of spring or summer days, | |
| Are sodden trunk and songless bough. | |
| The past sits widowed on her brow, | |
| Homeward she wends with wintry gaze, | 30 |
| To walls that house a hollow vow, | |
| To hearth where love hath ceased to blaze; | |
| Watches the clammy twilight wane, | |
| With grief too fixed for woe or tear; | |
| And, with her forehead ’gainst the pane, | 35 |
| Envies the dying year. | |
| |
