She followed the lines of wheat Tripping straight through the field, green blades, To the groves of olive gray, Downy-gray, golden-tinged: and to glades Where the pear-blossom thickens the spray In a night, like the snow-packed storm: Pear, apple, almond, plum: Not wintry now: pushing, warm! And she touched them with finger and thumb, As the vine-hook closes: she smiled, Recounting again and again, Corn, wine, fruit, oil! like a child, With the meaning known to men. For hours in the track of the plough And the pruning-knife she stepped, And of how the seed works, and of how Yields the soil, she seemed adept. Then she murmured that name of the dearth, The Beneficent, Hers, who bade Our husbandmen sow for the birth Of the grain making earth full glad. She murmured that Other’s: the dirge Of life-light: for whose dark lap Our locks are clipped on the verge Of the realm where runs no sap. She said: We have looked on both! And her eyes had a wavering beam Of various lights, like the froth Of the storm-swollen ravine stream In flame of the bolt. What links Were these which had made him her friend? He eyed her, as one who drinks, And would drink to the end. VII. Now the meadows with crocus besprent, And the asphodel woodsides she left, And the lake-slopes, the ravishing scent Of narcissus, dark-sweet, for the cleft That tutors the torrent-brook, Delaying its forceful spleen With many a wind and crook Through rock to the broad ravine. By the hyacinth-bells in the brakes, And the shade-loved white windflower, half hid, And the sun-loving lizards and snakes On the cleft’s barren ledges, that slid Out of sight, smooth as waterdrops, all, At a snap of twig or bark In the track of the foreign foot-fall, She climbed to the pine-forest dark, Overbrowing an emerald chine Of the grass-billows. Thence, as a wreath, Running poplar and cypress to pine, The lake-banks are seen, and beneath, Vineyard, village, groves, rivers, towers, farms, The citadel watching the bay, The bay with the town in its arms, The town shining white as the spray Of the sapphire sea-wave on the rock, Where the rock stars the girdle of sea, White-ringed, as the midday flock, Clipped by heat, rings the round of the tree. That hour of the piercing shaft Transfixes bough-shadows, confused In veins of fire, and she laughed, With her quiet mouth amused, To see the whole flock, adroop, Asleep, hug the tree-stem as one, Imperceptibly filling the loop Of its shade at a slant of sun. The pipes under pent of the crag, Where the goatherds in piping recline, Have whimsical stops, burst and flag Uncorrected as outstretched swine: For the fingers are slack and unsure, And the wind issues querulous:--thorns And snakes!--but she listened demure, Comparing day’s music with morn’s. Of the gentle spirit that slips