On Reading Ballads

We lay upon a flowery hill
Close by the railway lines,
Apollo dusted gold on us
Between the windy pines.

We watched the London trains go by
Full of the weary folk,
Who travelled back that Sunday night
To six more days of smoke.

They stared out at the whirling fields,
And when they saw us two,
They turned their heads to follow us
Till we were snatched from view.

The year was at the summer’s spring
When grass grows fresh and long,
And flowers are more in bud than bloom,
And cuckoos slacken song.

The sainfoin and the purple vetch
Nodding above our lair
Sighed on the western breeze, whose might
Could barely stir our hair.

The hawkweed on our ballad book
Sprinkled its pollen fine,
And now and then a beetle dropped
And wandered through a line.

“Sir Patrick Spens” we loitered down,
“Tam Lin” and “Young Beichan,”
And almost felt the sunshine weep
For the “Lass of Lochroyan.”

Stanza on stanza endlessly
From her lips or from mine
Benumbed our dreaming souls, like drops
Of a Circean wine.

I watched her while she read to me,
As children watch their nurse,
Until my being throbbed to hear
This solitary verse:

“O western wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ! That my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!”

This little verse cut thorugh the twists
Of the dream-twinèd spell,
And “Robin Hood” sank back again
With the “Wife of Usher’s Well.”

And an illimitable desire
Quickened our souls with pain.
We knew that we were still at one
With the people in the train.