• And But when that hour my soul won strength
• For words whose silence wastes & kills,
• Dull raindrops smote us, & at length
• Thundered the heat within the hills.
• That eve at home I spoke those words again
• Beside the pelted window-pane;
• And there she hearkened what I said,
• With under-glances that surveyed
• The empty pastures blind with rain.

• 10 Next day the memories of these things,
• Like leaves through which a bird has flown,
• Still vibrated with Love's warm wings;
• Till I must make them all my own
• And paint this picture. So, 'twixt ease
• Of talk and sweet long silences,
• She stood among the plants in bloom
• At windows of a summer room,
• To feign the shadow of the trees.

• And as I wrought, while all above
• 20 And all around was fragrant air,
• In the sick burthen of my love
• It seemed each sun-thrilled blossom there
• Beat like a heart among the leaves.
• O heart that neither never beats nor heaves,
• In that one darkness lying still,
• What now to thee my love's great will
• Or the fine web the sunshine weaves?

• For now doth daylight disavow
• Those days,—nought left to see or hear.
• 30 Only in solemn whispers now
• At night-time these things reach mine ear;
• When the leaf-shadows at a breath
• Shrink in the road, and all the heath,
• Forest and water, far and wide,
• In limpid starlight glorified,
• Lie like the mystery of death.