And thou hast chosen where this life shall be: The land which gave me thee shall be our home, Where nature lies all wild amid her lakes And snow-swathed mountains and vast pines begirt With ropes of snow--where nature lies all bare, Suffering none to view her but a race Or stinted or deformed, like the mute dwarfs Which wait upon a naked Indian queen. And there (the time being when the heavens are thick With storm) I'll sit with thee while thou dost sing Thy native songs, gay as a desert bird Which crieth as it flies for perfect joy, Or telling me old stories of dead knights; Or I will read great lays to thee--how she, The fair pale sister, went to her chill grave With power to love and to be loved and live: Or we will go together, like twin gods Of the infernal world, with scented lamp Over the dead, to call and to awake, Over the unshaped images which lie Within my mind's cave: only leaving all, That tells of the past doubt. So, when spring comes With sunshine back again like an old smile, And the fresh waters and awakened birds And budding woods await us, I shall be Prepared, and we will question life once more, Till its old sense shall come renewed by change, Like some clear thought which harsh words veiled before; Feeling God loves us, and that all which errs Is but a dream which death will dissipate. And then what need of longer exile? Seek My England, and, again there, calm approach All I once fled from, calmly look on those The works of my past weakness, as one views Some scene where danger met him long before. Ah that such pleasant life should be but dreamed!