Am I so fair, Philip? Philip, did you think I was so fair when we played boy and girl, Where blue forget-me-nots bloomed on the brink Of our stream which the mill-wheel sent a whirl? If I was fair then sure I'm fairer now, Sitting where a score of servants stand, With a coronet on high days for my brow And almost a sceptre for my hand. 40 You're but a sailor, Philip, weatherbeaten brown, A stranger on land and at home on the sea, Coasting as best you may from town to town: Coasting along do you often think of me? I'm a great lady in a sheltered bower, With hands grown white through having nought to do: Yet sometimes I think of you hour after hour Till I nigh wish myself a child with you. WHAT WOULD I GIVE? What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through, Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do; Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all. What would I give for words, if only words would come; But now in its misery my spirit has fallen dumb: Oh, merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say. What would I give for tears, not smiles but scalding tears, To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years, To wash the stain ingrain and to make me clean again. THE BOURNE Underneath the growing grass, Underneath the living flowers, Deeper than the sound of showers: There we shall not count the hours By the shadows as they pass. Youth and health will be but vain, Beauty reckoned of no worth: There a very little girth Can hold round what once the earth Seemed too narrow to contain. SUMMER Winter is cold-hearted Spring is yea and nay, Autumn is a weather-cock Blown every way: Summer days for me When every leaf is on its tree; When Robin's not a beggar, And Jenny Wren's a bride, And larks hang singing, singing, singing, Over the wheat-fields wide, 10 And anchored lilies ride, And the pendulum spider Swings from side to side, And blue-black beetles transact business, And gnats fly in a host, And furry caterpillars hasten That no time be lost, And moths grow fat and thrive, And ladybirds arrive. Before green apples blush, 20 Before green nuts embrown, Why, one day in the country Is worth a month in town; Is worth a day and a year Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion That days drone elsewhere. AUTUMN I dwell alone--I dwell alone, alone, Whilst full my river flows down to the sea, Gilded with flashing boats That bring no friend to me: O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats, O love-pangs, let me be.