A while we wandered (thus it is I dream!) Through a long, sandy track of No Man's Land, Where only poppies grew among the sand, The which we, plucking, cast with scant esteem, And ever sadlier, into the sad stream, Which followed us, as we went, hand in hand, Under the estranged stars, a road unplanned, Seeing all things in the shadow of a dream. And ever sadlier, as the stars expired, We found the poppies rarer, till thine eyes Grown all my light, to light me were too tired, And at their darkening, that no surmise Might haunt me of the lost days we desired, After them all I flung those memories! VESPERAL Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings! The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb: Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come: _Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_ Labour and longing and despair the long day brings; Patient till evening men watch the sun go west; Deferred, expected night at last brings sleep and rest: _Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_ At last the tranquil Angelus of evening rings Night's curtain down for comfort and oblivion Of all the vanities observèd by the sun: _Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!_ So, some time, when the last of all our evenings Crowneth memorially the last of all our days, Not loth to take his poppies man goes down and says, "Sufficient for the day were the day's evil things!" THE GARDEN OF SHADOW Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose. O bright, bright hair! O mount like a ripe fruit! Can famine be so nigh to harvesting? Love, that was songful, with a broken lute In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring. Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers, And all thy garden change and glow with spring: Love is grown blind with no more count of hours Nor part in seed-tune nor in harvesting. SOLI CANTARE PERITI ARCADES Oh, I would live in a dairy, And its Colin I would be, And many a rustic fairy Should churn the milk with me. Or the fields should be my pleasure, And my flocks should follow me, Piping a frolic measure For Joan or Marjorie. For the town is black and weary, And I hate the London street; But the country ways are cheery, And country lanes are sweet. Good luck to you, Paris ladies! Ye are over fine and nice I know where the country maid is, Who needs not asking twice. Ye are brave in your silks and satins, As ye mince about the Town; But her feet go free in pattens, If she wear a russet gown. If she be not queen nor goddess She shall milk my brown-eyed herds, And the breasts beneath her bodice Are whiter than her curds.