A Woman’s Apology
In the green darkness of a summer wood,
Wherethro' ran winding ways, a lady stood,
Carved from the air in curving womanhood.
A maiden's form crowned by a matron's mien,
As, about Lammas, wheat-stems may be seen,
The ear all golden, but the stalk still green.
There as she stood, waiting for sight or sound,
Down a dim alley without break or bound,
Slowly he came, his gaze upon the ground.
Nor ever once he lifted up his eyes
Till he no more her presence could disguise;
Then he her face saluted silentwise.
And silentwise no less she turned, as though
She was the leaf and he the current's flow,
And where he went, there she perforce must go.
And both kept speechless as the dumb or dead,
Nor did the earth so much as speak their tread,
So soft by last year's leaves 'twas carpeted.
And not a sound moved all the greenwood through,
Save when some quest with fluttering wings outflew,
Ruffling the leaves; then silence was anew.
And when the track they followed forked in twain,
They never doubted which one should be ta'en,
But chose as though obeying secret rein.
Until they came where boughs no longer screened
The sky, and soon abruptly intervened
A rustic gate, and over it they leaned.
Leaned over it, and green before them lay
A meadow ribbed with drying swathes of hay,
From which the hinds had lately gone away.
Beyond it, yet more woods, these too at rest,
Smooth-dipping down to shore, unseen, but guessed;
For lo! the Sea, with nothing on its breast.
``I was sure you would come,'' she said, with a voice like a broken wing
That flutters, and fails, then flags, while it nurses the failure's sting;
``You could not refuse me that, 'tis but such a little thing.
``Do I remember the words, the farewell words that you spoke,
Answering soft with hard, ere we parted under the oak?
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poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
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