  I saw myself encircled in the grey Of your grey eyes, Dear Love, as in a glass; In place of lurking glooms I come their way As idle ghosts through magic mirrors pass Or shifty clouds bewilder a spring day Or windy shadows dusk the summer grass. And as swift sickles lop the hedge-row grass, As ghosts scent out the dawn with faces grey And flee before the stirring feet of day, As magic shivers in a splintered glass, So all the shaken pictures of me pass Even with the moving of your head away. Yet would your head be ever turned my way, Only our peace is fugitive as grass:— Beyond the clapping lintels footsteps pass, Shake the snared joy from quiet’s cobweb grey— O who drinks silence from a jolted glass, Who deals in stillness on a market-day? Our joys go begging for a gentle day, They are swayed as weed-stems in a water-way, Hurt as blind lips that drain a broken glass, Blown down by breath as petals flung on grass, Thinned as gold hair dull sorrow braids with grey, Lopped short as willow-tufts where cattle pass. This noisy horde of minutes never pass, This patchwork crew;—they throng us day by day, Hint of silk linings to their cloaks of grey, Cleave out strong-elbowed their ungentle way, Bruise the poor joy as legions tread the grass, Or as wet fingers rub a moaning glass. There is no day ringed round with seas of glass, No island day, where like-faced minutes pass Fingered on gathered mouth through breathless grass With close-girt garment lest the bloom of day Be brushed or pollen spilt along their way,— Or lest my face be shook from your eyes’ grey. O dear grey eyes, though ruder minutes pass And dusk the glass, your heart is turned my way Wherein all day my face springs up like grass. |
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