Alfred Austin Poems

I
What is it haunts the summer air?
A sense of something lately passed away;
Something pleasant, something fair,
...

If I to you but sorrow bring,
But aching hours and brackish tears,
And that poor drooping Hope whose wing
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Realm of ocean-guarded Peace,
Humming loom and grazing steer,
Farm, and forge, and woven fleece,
Happier, homelier, year by year,
...

One day as on an ass I rode,
By many a twisting gully,
To where once stood the famed abode
Of philosophic Tully,
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Hail! throstle, by thy ringing voice descried,
Not by the wanderings of the tuneless wing!
Now once again where forkëd boughs divide,
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I chide not at the seasons, for if Spring
With backward look refuses to be fair,
My Love still more than April makes me sing,
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How can I tell thee when I love thee best?
In rapture or repose? how shall I say?
I only know I love thee every way,
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The gloss is fading from your hair,
The glamour from your brow;
The light your eyes were wont to wear
Attracts no gazer now.
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Though all the world should stand aside,
And leave you to your sorrow,
And you from none, or near, or wide,
A smile or tear could borrow;
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O the sunny days before us, before us, before us,
When all was bright
From holt to height,
And the heavens were shining o'er us;
...