In Absence
I think of you and wooded ways together;
Of dimpled shallows, dark, pellucid, cool;
Of deep refreshing draught in sultry weather,
From recess of the fern-rimmed forest pool.
I see you still in copse-grown, marshy places.
Where fallen willows bridge the brook across;
Where earliest cowslips show their sunny faces,
And violets idle on a couch of moss.
I think of you in meadows rank with yarrow;
With bramble blossom and the spreading may;
Or upland pastures where the vesper-sparrow
Trills the sweet dimming of the summer day.
The crested redbird in his whistled snatches;
The squirrels chatter in their airy game;
The wild dove's call, the bobolink's gay catches.
But ring a hundred changes on your name.
It is your voice that mingles with the thrush's,
When from the border of the distant wood,
Alone, he fills the evening's solemn hushes
With the most touching grace of solitude.
I think of you when, in the soft moon's splendor;
I sit alone beneath our trysting tree,
And by some warmer glow, some yearning tender,
Feel all the messages you send to me.
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