THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER. VOL. I. I SEE the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, The busy wrinkles round his eyes? In yonder chair I see him sit, Three fingers round the old silver cup I see his gray eyes twinkle yet At his own jest-gray eyes lit up So full of summer warmth, so glad, Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, Have I not found a happy earth? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine To be the long and listless boy For even here, where I and you Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro' By some wild skylark's matin song. And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan; But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dream Still hither thither idly sway'd Like those long mosses in the stream. Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear And see the minnows everywhere In crystal eddies glance and poise, The tall flag-flowers when they sprung Below the range of stepping-stones, Or those three chestnuts near, that hung In masses thick with milky cones. But, Alice, what an hour was that, Were glistening to the breezy blue; And on the slope, an absent fool, I cast me down, nor thought of you, But angled in the higher pool. A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in my head From some odd corner of the brain. It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times. Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood And there a vision caught my eye; As when a sunbeam wavers warm 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: And when I raised my eyes, above They met with two so full and bright— Such eyes! I swear to you, my love, That these have never lost their light. I loved, and love dispell'd the fear And fill'd the breast with purer breath. My mother thought, What ails the boy? For I was alter'd, and began To move about the house with joy, I loved the brimming wave that swam Thro' quiet meadows round the mill, The sleepy pool above the dam, The pool beneath it never still, The meal-sacks on the whiten'd floor, The dark round of the dripping wheel, The very air about the door Made misty with the floating meal. And oft in ramblings on the wold, And full at heart of trembling hope, Upon the freshly-flower'd slope. |