THE rain and wind, the rain and wind, raved endlessly. On me the Summer storm, and fever, and melancholy Wrought magic, so that if I feared the solitude Far more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude, Had been the wisest or the dearest human voice. What I desired I knew not, but whate'er my choice Vain it must be, I knew. Yet naught did my despair But sweeten the strange sweetness, while through the wild air All day long I heard a distant cuckoo calling And, soft as dulcimers, sounds of near water falling, And, softer, and remote as if in history, Rumours of what had touched my friends, my foes, or me. ADLESTROP YES. I remember Adlestrop-- The name, because one afternoon Of heat the express-train drew up there Unwontedly. It was late June. The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came On the bare platform. What I saw Was Adlestrop--only the name And willows, willow-herb, and grass, And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry, No whit less still and lonely fair Than the high cloudlets in the sky. And for that minute a blackbird sang Close by, and round him, mistier, Farther and farther, all the birds Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. THE GREEN ROADS THE green roads that end in the forest Are strewn with white goose feathers this June, Like marks left behind by some one gone to the forest To show his track. But he has never come back. Down each green road a cottage looks at the forest. Round one the nettle towers; two are bathed in flowers. An old man along the green road to the forest Strays from one, from another a child alone. In the thicket bordering the forest, All day long a thrush twiddles his song. It is old, but the trees are young in the forest, All but one like a castle keep, in the middle deep. That oak saw the ages pass in the forest: They were a host, but their memories are lost, For the tree is dead: all things forget the forest Excepting perhaps me, when now I see The old man, the child, the goose feathers at the edge of the forest, And hear all day long the thrush repeat his song. THE MILL-POND THE sun blazed while the thunder yet Added a boom: A wagtail flickered bright over The mill-pond's gloom: Less than the cooing in the alder Isles of the pool Sounded the thunder through that plunge Of waters cool. Scared starlings on the aspen tip Past the black mill Outchattered the stream and the next roar Far on the hill. As my feet dangling teased the foam That slid below A girl came out. "Take care!" she said-- Ages ago. She startled me, standing quite close Dressed all in white: Ages ago I was angry till She passed from sight. Then the storm burst, and as I crouched To shelter, how Beautiful and kind, too, she seemed, As she does now! IT WAS UPON