With chewing of some perfumed deadly grass, Are shed all round his passage if he pass, And their quenched savour leaves the whole soul weak, Sick with keen guessing whence the perfume was. As one who hidden in deep sedge and reeds Smells the rare scent made where a panther feeds, And tracking ever slotwise the warm smell Is snapped upon by the sweet mouth and bleeds, His head far down the hot sweet throat of her-- So one tracks love, whose breath is deadlier, And lo, one springe and you are fast in hell, Fast as the gin's grip of a wayfarer. I think now, as the heavy hours decease One after one, and bitter thoughts increase One upon one, of all sweet finished things; The breaking of the battle; the long peace Wherein we sat clothed softly, each man's hair Crowned with green leaves beneath white hoods of vair; The sounds of sharp spears at great tourneyings, And noise of singing in the late sweet air. I sang of love too, knowing nought thereof; "Sweeter," I said, "the little laugh of love Than tears out of the eyes of Magdalen, Or any fallen feather of the Dove. "The broken little laugh that spoils a kiss, The ache of purple pulses, and the bliss Of blinded eyelids that expand again-- Love draws them open with those lips of his, "Lips that cling hard till the kissed face has grown Of one same fire and colour with their own; Then ere one sleep, appeased with sacrifice, Where his lips wounded, there his lips atone." I sang these things long since and knew them not; "Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot, This man and that finds favour in his eyes," I said, "but I, what guerdon have I got? "The dust of praise that is blown everywhere In all men's faces with the common air; The bay-leaf that wants chafing to be sweet Before they wind it in a singer's hair." So that one dawn I rode forth sorrowing; I had no hope but of some evil thing, And so rode slowly past the windy wheat And past the vineyard and the water-spring, Up to the Horsel. A great elder-tree Held back its heaps of flowers to let me see The ripe tall grass, and one that walked therein, Naked, with hair shed over to the knee. She walked between the blossom and the grass; I knew the beauty of her, what she was, The beauty of her body and her sin, And in my flesh the sin of hers, alas! Alas! for sorrow is all the end of this. O sad kissed mouth, how sorrowful it is! O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings, Red with the bitter blossom of a kiss! Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and found About my neck your hands and hair enwound, The hands that stifle and the hair that stings, I felt them fasten sharply without sound. Yea, for my sin I had great store of bliss: Rise up, make answer for me, let thy kiss Seal my lips hard from speaking of my sin, Lest one go mad to hear how sweet it is.