Classic Poem

TO ALICE MEYNELL

Lady, through grasses stiff with rime
And wraith-hung trees I wander
Where the red sun at pitch of prime
Half of his might must squander.
Narrow the track
As I look back
On traces green behind me —
I go alone
To think upon
A face, where none
Shall find me.

Birds peal; but each grim grove its shroud
Retains, as to betoken
Though the young lawn should wave off cloud
These would have Night unbroken —
Desire no plash
Of the Lake awash —
No gold but gold that's glinted
In still device
From the breast of ice
Whose summer cries
Have stinted.

But in a great and glittering space
The black Elm doth restore me
To you. Empower'd with patient grace
Musing she stands before me;
Her webs divine
Ghosted with fine
Remembrance few can capture;
Her very shade
On greenness laid
Is white, — is made
Of rapture!