Stratton Water
“O HAVE you seen the Stratton flood
That's great with rain to-day?
It runs beneath your wall, Lord Sands,
Full of the new-mown hay.
“I led your hounds to Hutton bank
To bathe at early morn:
They got their bath by Borrowbrake
Above the standing corn.”
Out from the castle-stair Lord Sands
Looked up the western lea;
The rook was grieving on her nest,
The flood was round her tree.
Over the castle-wall Lord Sands
Looked down the eastern hill:
The stakes swam free among the boats,
The flood was rising still.
“What's yonder far below that lies
So white against the slope?”
“O it's a sail o' your bonny barks
The waters have washed up.”
“But I have never a sail so white,
And the water's not yet there.”
“O it's the swans o' your bonny lake
The rising flood doth scare.”
“The swans they would not hold so still,
So high they would not win.”
“O it's Joyce my wife has spread her smock
And fears to fetch it in.”
“Nay, knave, it's neither sail nor swans,
Nor aught that you can say;
For though your wife might leave her smock,
Herself she'd bring away.”
Lord Sands has passed the turret-stair,
The court, and yard, and all;
The kine were in the byre that day,
The nags were in the stall.
Lord Sands has won the weltering slope
Whereon the white shape lay:
The clouds were still above the hill,
And the shape was still as they.
Oh pleasant is the gaze of life
And sad is death's blind head;
But awful are the living eyes
In the face of one thought dead!
“In God's name, Janet, is it me
Thy ghost has come to seek?”
“Nay, wait another hour, Lord Sands,—
Be sure my ghost shall speak.”
A moment stood he as a stone,
Then grovelled to his knee.
[...] Read more
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
