XLIV.

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And even into my inmost ring

A pleasure I discern'd,

Like those blind motions of the Spring,
That show the year is turn'd.

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 suck'd and gather'd into one The life that spreads in them,

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XLIX.

She had not found me so remiss ;
But lightly issuing thro',

I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto."

L.

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.

'Tis 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 dropp'd their silken eaves.

I breathed upon her eyes

Thro' all the summer of my leaves

A welcome mix'd with sighs.

LIV.

"I took the swarming sound of life—
The music from the town-

The whispers of the drum and fife,
And lull'd them in my own.

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LV.

Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;

A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;

LVI.

"A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck,

From head to ancle fine.

LVII.

"Then close and dark my arms I spread, And shadow'd all her restDropt dews upon her golden head,

An acorn in her breast.

LVIII.

"But in a pet she started up,

And pluck'd it out, and drew My little oakling from the cup,

And flung him in the dew.

LIX.

"And yet it was a graceful giftI felt a pang within

As when I see the woodman lift

His axe to slay my kin.

LX.

"I shook him down because he was

The finest on the tree.

He lies beside thee on the grass.

O kiss him once for me.

LXI.

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me,

That have no lips to kiss,

For never yet was oak on lea

Shall grow so fair as this."

LXII.

Step deeper yet in herb and fern,

Look further thro' the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern

The front of Sumner-place.

LXIII.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest,

That but a moment lay

Where fairer fruit of Love may rest

Some happy future day.

LXIV.

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,

The warmth it thence shall win To riper life may magnetise

The baby-oak within.

LXV.

But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.

LXVI.

May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint,

That art the fairest spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.

LXVII.

O rock upon thy towery top

All throats that gurgle sweet! All starry culmination drop

Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

LXVIII.

All grass of silky feather grow—
And while he sinks or swells

The full south-breeze around thee blow
The sound of minster bells.