IV

Meeting my childhood love one day in magnicent
August, at the time when tree is wooed into leaf
And conjuring pond surprises the world with lilies
And wise-cracking ducks, when the green graminivorous
Sun releases snow-fettered hills

Into a myriad field-wandering trespassing streams,
Her face—the shape of my heart, her mouth——
The guileless texture of a blackbird's song,
I hardly knew her for the frock she wore
Of the colour of August, and her body

Loose as the wind-delighting poplar tree; stepping
So gaily out like a word from the cool white
Language of girls, my name so warm on her lips,
And the day so rare, that from the cave-cool
Band rotunda, sweet sexual music

Straddled the wind-ruffled lake and excited
The inhibited swan and drove him crazy;
And O, through foam of alder and cherry trees,
The sparrows tumbled bewitched with song. with song:
—That love did not come to anything.