O easy access to the hearer’s grace
  When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! 
    For she herself had trod Sicilian fields,
  She knew the Dorian water’s gush divine, deg. deg.94
    She knew each lily white which Enna yields, 95
      Each rose with blushing face deg.; deg.96
  She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain. deg. deg.97
    But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! 
    Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr’d;
  And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! 100

Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be,
  Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour
    In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp’d hill! 
  Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? 
    I know the wood which hides the daffodil, 105
      I know the Fyfield tree, deg. deg.106
  I know what white, what purple fritillaries
    The grassy harvest of the river-fields,
    Above by Ensham, deg. down by Sandford, deg. yields, deg.109
  And what sedged brooks are Thames’s tributaries; 110

I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?—­
  But many a dingle on the loved hill-side,
    With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom’d trees
  Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried
    High tower’d the spikes of purple orchises, 115
      Hath since our day put by
  The coronals of that forgotten time;
    Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy’s team,
    And only in the hidden brookside gleam
  Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. 120

Where is the girl, who by the boatman’s door,
  Above the locks, above the boating throng,
    Unmoor’d our skiff when through the Wytham flats, deg. deg.123
  Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among
    And darting swallows and light water-gnats, 125
      We track’d the shy Thames shore? 
  Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell
    Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
    Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?—­
  They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! 130

Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night
  In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. 
    I see her veil draw soft across the day,
  I feel her slowly chilling breath invade
    The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent deg. with grey; deg.135
      I feel her finger light
  Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train;—­
    The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
    The heart less bounding at emotion new,
  And hope, once crush’d, less quick to spring again. 140