I.
How well I know what I mean to do When the long dark autumn-evenings come:
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb In life's November too!
II.
I shall be found by the fire, suppose, O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age, While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows And I turn the page, and I turn the page, Not verse now, only prose!
III.
Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip, ``There he is at it, deep in Greek:
``Now then, or never, out we slip ``To cut from the hazels by the creek ``A mainmast for our ship!''
IV.
I shall be at it indeed, my friends:
Greek puts already on either side Such a branch-work forth as soon extends To a vista opening far and wide, And I pass out where it ends.
V.
The outside-frame, like your hazel-trees:
But the inside-archway widens fast, And a rarer sort succeeds to these, And we slope to Italy at last And youth, by green degrees.
VI.
I follow wherever I am led, Knowing so well the leader's hand:
Oh woman-country, wooed not wed, Loved all the more by earth's male-lands, Laid to their hearts instead!
VII.
Look at the ruined chapel again Half-way up in the Alpine gorge!
Is that a tower, I point you plain, Or is it a mill, or an iron-forge Breaks solitude in vain?
VIII.
A turn, and we stand in the heart of things:
The woods are round us, heaped and dim;
From slab to slab how it slips and springs, The thread of water single and slim, Through the ravage some torrent brings!
IX.
Does it feed the little lake below?
That speck of white just on its marge Is Pella; see, in the evening-glow, How sharp the silver spear-heads charge When Alp meets heaven in snow!
X.
On our other side is the straight-up rock;
And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it By boulder-stones where lichens mock The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit Their teeth to the polished block.
XI.
Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, And thorny balls, each three in one, The chestnuts throw on our path in showers!
For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun, These early November hours, XII.
That crimson the creeper's leaf across Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt, O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss, And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped Elf-needled mat of moss, XIII.
By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged Last evening---nay, in to-day's first dew Yon sudden coral nipple bulged, Where a freaked fawn-coloured flaky crew Of toadstools peep indulged.
XIV.
And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge That takes the turn to a range beyond, Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond Danced over by the midge.
XV.
The chapel and bridge are of stone alike, Blackish-grey and mostly wet;Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke.
See here again, how the lichens fret And the roots of the ivy strike!
XVI.
Poor little place, where its one priest comes On a festa-day, if he comes at all, To the dozen folk from their scattered homes, Gathered within that precinct small By the dozen ways one roams---XVII.
To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts, Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed, Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts, Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread Their gear on the rock's bare juts.
XVIII.
It has some pretension too, this front, With its bit of fresco half-moon-wise Set over the porch, Art's early wont:
'Tis John in the Desert, I surmise, But has borne the weather's brunt---XIX.
Not from the fault of the builder, though, For a pent-house properly projects Where three carved beams make a certain show, Dating---good thought of our architect's---'Five, six, nine, he lets you know.
XX.
And all day long a bird sings there, And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times;The place is silent and aware;
It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes, But that is its own affair.
XXI.
My perfect wife, my Leonor, Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too, Whom else could I dare look backward for, With whom beside should I dare pursue The path grey heads abhor?
XXII.
For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them;Youth, flowery all the way, there stops---Not they; age threatens and they contemn, Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops, One inch from life's safe hem!
XXIII.
With me, youth led ... I will speak now, No longer watch you as you sit Reading by fire-light, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Mutely, my heart knows how---XXIV.
When, if I think but deep enough, You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme;And you, too, find without rebuff Response your soul seeks many a time Piercing its fine flesh-stuff.
XXV.
My own, confirm me! If I tread This path back, is it not in pride To think how little I dreamed it led To an age so blest that, by its side, Youth seems the waste instead?
XXVI.
My own, see where the years conduct!
At first, 'twas something our two souls Should mix as mists do; each is sucked In each now: on, the new stream rolls, Whatever rocks obstruct.
XXVII.
