On a day that vainly lent
Models for the poet's skill,
Wandering where the willows bent
Looking down into the rill,
At sight of their own beauty, still,
I lost what nothing can restore.
Into a fair woman's hold,
Dropped my secret, sacred thought;
Distance, winter, long and cold,
Wither what her beauty wrought —
Hers and June's; now all is naught,
I would have my thought once more.

Frozen is the little brook,
Which bare willows overlook;
Shrivelled are the fern and brake
That those red lips bade me take;
And the words that stole out then
Never can be fresh again.
Yet they died not with the leaf;
Had they, it were faint relief —
Faint relief to know that dead
Which I would were all unsaid.
Yet for this I grudge it so: —
When I to my true-heart go,
With a guileless jealousy
Her dear eyes will question me, —
Then what would I give to say,
— I ne'er said it till to-day! —