Love, love, and come it must, then life is found
  Beforehand that was whole and fronting care,
A torn and broken half in durance bound
  That mourns and makes request for its right fair
Remainder, with forlorn eyes cast around
  To search for what is lost, that unaware
With not an hour’s forebodement makes the day
From henceforth less or more for ever and aye.

Her name—­my love’s—­I knew it not; who says
  Of vagrant doubt for such a cause that stirs
His fancy shall not pay arrearages
  To all sweet names that might perhaps be hers? 
The doubts of love are powers.  His heart obeys,
  The world is in them, still to love defers,
Will play with him for love, but when ’t begins
The play is high, and the world always wins.

For ’tis the maiden’s world, and his no more. 
  Now thus it was:  with new found kin flew by
The temperate summer; every wheatfield wore
  Its gold, from house to house in ardency
Of heart for what they showed I westward bore—­
  My mother’s land, her native hills drew nigh;
I was—­how green, how good old earth can be—­
Beholden to that land for teaching me.

And parted from my fellows, and went on
  To feel the spiritual sadness spread
Adown long pastoral hollows.  And anon
  Did words recur in far remoteness said: 
’See the deep vale ere dews are dried and gone,
  Where my so happy life in peace I led,
And the great shadow of the Beacon lies—­
See little Ledbury trending up the rise.

With peaked houses and high market hall—­
  An oak each pillar—­reared in the old days. 
And here was little Ledbury, quaint withal,
  The forest felled, her lair and sheltering place
She long time left in age pathetical. 
  ‘Great oaks’ methought, as I drew near to gaze,
’Were but of small account when these came down,
Drawn rough-hewn in to serve the tree-girt town.

And thus and thus of it will question be
  The other side the world.’  I paused awhile
To mark.  ’The old hall standeth utterly
  Without or floor or side, a comely pile,
A house on pillars, and by destiny
  Drawn under its deep roof I saw a file
Of children slowly through their way make good,
And lifted up mine eyes—­and there—­SHE STOOD.

She was so stately that her youthful grace
  Drew out, it seemed, my soul unto the air,
Astonished out of breathing by her face
  So fain to nest itself in nut-brown hair
Lying loose about her throat.  But that old place
  Proved sacred, she just fully grown too fair
For such a thought.  The dimples that she had! 
She was so truly sweet that it was sad.

I was all hers.  That moment gave her power—­
  And whom, nay what she was, I scarce might know,
But felt I had been born for that good hour. 
  The perfect creature did not move, but so
As if ordained to claim all grace for dower. 
  She leaned against the pillar, and below
Three almost babes, her care, she watched the while
With downcast lashes and a musing smile.