For you remember, you had set, That morning, on the casement-edge A long green box of mignonette, And you were leaning from the ledge: They met with two so full and bright – I loved, and love dispell'd the fear And fill'd the breast with purer breath. I loved the brimming wave that swam The sleepy pool above the dam, The pool beneath it never still, 85 90 95 100 And " by that lamp," I thought, "she sits!" The white chalk-quarry from the hill 115 Gleam'd to the flying moon by fits. The lanes, you know, were white with May, 130 And dews, that would have fall'n in tears, I kiss'd away before they fell. A trifle, sweet! which true love spells True love interprets — right alone. So, if I waste words now, in truth And now those vivid hours are gone, Half-anger'd with my happy lot Love that hath us in the net, Even so. Love is hurt with jar and fret. Eyes with idle tears are wet. Idle habit links us yet. 190 195 200 205 210 What is love? for we forget: Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife, 215 Round my true heart thine arms entwine; My other dearer life in life, Look thro' my very soul with thine! Untouch'd with any shade of years, May those kind eyes forever dwell! They have not shed a many tears, Dear eyes, since first I knew them well. 220 Yet tears they shed: they had their part THAT story which the bold Sir Bedivere, For on their march to westward, Bedivere, Who slowly paced among the slumbering host, Heard in his tent the moanings of the King: 240 245 5 |