XXXV.

"And in a fit of frolic mirth She strove to span my waist: Alas, I was so broad of girth,

I could not be embraced.

XXXVI.

"I wished myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,

That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have locked her hands.

XXXVII.

"Yet seemed the pressure thrice as sweet

As woodbine's fragile hold,

Or when I feel about my feet

The berried briony fold."

XXXVIII.

O muffle round thy knees with fern,

And shadow Sumner-chace!

Long may thy topmost branch discern

The roofs of Sumner-place!

XXXIX.

But tell me, did she read the name

I carved with many vows,

When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs?

XL.

"O yes, she wandered round and round

These knotted knees of mine,

And found, and kissed the name she found, And sweetly murmured thine.

XLI.

"A tear-drop trembled from its source,

And down my surface crept.

My sense of touch is something coarse,

But I believe she wept.

XLII.

“Then flushed her cheek with rosy light,

She glanced across the plain;

But not a creature was in sight:
She kissed me once again.

XLIII.

"Her kisses were so close and kind,
That, trust me on my word,

Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirred:

XLIV.

"And even into my inmost ring

A pleasure I discerned,

Like those blind motions of the Spring, That show the year is turned.

XLV.

Thrice-happy he that may caress

The ringlet's waving balm

The cushions of whose touch may press The maiden's tender palm.

XLVI.

I, rooted here among the groves,

But languidly adjust

My vapid vegetable loves

With anthers and with dust:

XLVII.

"For ah! the Dryad-days were brief

Whereof the poets talk,

When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk.

XLVIII.

"But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem,
Have sucked and gathered into one
The life that spreads in them,

XLIX.

"She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing through,

I would have paid her kiss for kiss

O flourish high, with leafy towers,

And overlook the lea,

Pursue thy loves among the bowers,

But leave thou mine to me.

LI.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern,

Old oak, I love thee well;

A thousand thanks for what I learn

And what remains to tell.

LII.

“'T is little more: the day was warm; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm,

And at my feet she lay.

LIII.

"Her eyelids dropped their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes

Through all the summer of my leaves A welcome mixed with sighs.

LIV.

"I took the swarming sound of life

The music from the town

The whispers of the drum and fife,

And lulled them in my own.