Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard: 
“What, lad, drooping with your lot? 
I too would be where I am not. 
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine. 
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still. 
Courage, lad, ’tis not for long: 
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong.” 
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I slept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone.

LII

Far in a western brookland
 That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
 By pools I used to know.

There, in the windless night-time,
 The wanderer, marvelling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
 How soft the poplars sigh.

He hears:  long since forgotten
 In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
 And turn to rest alone.

There, by the starlit fences,
 The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
 About the glimmering weirs.

LIII

THE TRUE LOVER

The lad came to the door at night,
 When lovers crown their vows,
And whistled soft and out of sight
 In shadow of the boughs.

“I shall not vex you with my face
 Henceforth, my love, for aye;
So take me in your arms a space
 Before the east is grey.”

“When I from hence away am past
 I shall not find a bride,
And you shall be the first and last
 I ever lay beside.”

She heard and went and knew not why;
 Her heart to his she laid;
Light was the air beneath the sky
 But dark under the shade.

“Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast
 Seems not to rise and fall,
And here upon my bosom prest
 There beats no heart at all?”

“Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock,
 You should have felt it then;
But since for you I stopped the clock
 It never goes again.”

“Oh lad, what is it, lad, that drips
 Wet from your neck on mine? 
What is it falling on my lips,
 My lad, that tastes of brine?”

“Oh like enough ’tis blood, my dear,
 For when the knife has slit
The throat across from ear to ear
 ’Twill bleed because of it.”

Under the stars the air was light
 But dark below the boughs,
The still air of the speechless night,
 When lovers crown their vows.

LIV

With rue my heart is laden
 For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
 And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
 The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
 In fields where roses fade.