THE MILLERS DAUGHTER.
105
The tall flag-flowers, where they sprung
Below the range of stepping-stones,
And those three chestnuts near, that hung
In masses thick with milky cones.
But, Alice, what an hour was that,
When after roving in the woods
('Twas April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds
Were glistening to the breezy blue;
And on the slope, an absent fool,
I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.
A love-song I had somewhere read.
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head
From some odd corner of the brain.
It haunted me, the morning long,
With weary sameness in the rhymes,
The phantom of a silent song,
That went and came a thousand times.
