Recollections Of Love

I

How warm this woodland wild Recess !
  Love surely hath been breathing here ;
  And this sweet bed of heath, my dear !
Swells up, then sinks with faint caress,
  As if to have you yet more near.

  II

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay
  On sea-ward Quantock's heathy hills,
  Where quiet sounds from hidden rills
Float hear and there, like things astray,
  And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

  III

No voice as yet had made the air
  Be music with your name ; yet why
  That asking look ? that yearning sigh ?
That sense of promise every where ?
  Belovéd ! flew your spirit by ?

  IV

As when a mother doth explore
  The rose-mark on her long-lost child,
  I met, I loved you, maiden mild !
As whom I long had loved before--
  So deeply had I been beguiled.

  V

You stood before me like a thought,
  A dream remembered in a dream.
  But when those meek eyes first did seem
To tell me, Love within you wrought--
  O Greta, dear domestic stream !

  VI

Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep,
  Has not Love's whisper evermore
  Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar ?
Sole voice, when other voices sleep,
  Dear under-song in clamor's hour.

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