I see the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, And who that knew him could forget The busy wrinkles round his eyes? The slow wise smile that, round about His dusty forehead drily curl’d, Seem’d half-within and half-without, And full of dealings with the world? In yonder chair I see him sit, Three fingers round the old silver cup— I see his gray eyes twinkle yet At his own jest—gray eyes lit up With summer lightnings of a soul So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me[1] sad. Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss: My own sweet[2] Alice, we must die. There’s somewhat in this world amiss Shall be unriddled by and by. There’s somewhat flows to us in life, But more is taken quite away. Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,[3] That we may die the self-same day. Have I not found a happy earth? I least should breathe a thought of pain. Would God renew me from my birth I’d almost live my life again. So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine— It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine—[4] To be the long and listless boy Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire:[5] For even here,[6] where I and you Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro’ By some wild skylark’s matin song. And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan;[7] But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own. For scarce my life with fancy play’d Before I dream’d that pleasant dream— Still hither thither idly sway’d Like those long mosses[8] in the stream. Or from the bridge I lean’d to hear The milldam rushing down with noise, And see the minnows everywhere In crystal eddies glance and poise, The tall flag-flowers when[9] they sprung Below the range of stepping-stones, Or those three chestnuts near, that hung In masses thick with milky cones.[10] But, Alice, what an hour was that, When after roving in the woods (’Twas April then), I came and sat Below the chestnuts, when their buds Were glistening to the breezy blue; And on the slope, an absent fool, I cast me down, nor thought of you, But angled in the higher pool.[11] A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in my head From some odd corner of the brain. It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times. Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood I watch’d the little circles die; They past into the level flood, And there a vision caught my eye; The reflex of a beauteous form, A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck.[12]