Lines from The Soul's Destroyer

We went together side by side to school,

Together had our holidays in fields

Made golden by June’s buttercups; in woods,

Where under ferns fresh pulled I buried her,

And called her forth like Lazarus from the grave;

She’d laughing come, to shake her curls until

Methought to hear full half a hundred bells.

A grown-up world took playful notice soon,

Made me feel shame that grew a greater love;

She was more chary of her laughter then,

And more subdued her voice, as soft and sweet

As Autumn’s, blowing through his golden reeds.

In her sweet sympathies she was a woman

When scarcely she was more than child in years;

And yet one angry moment parted us,

And days of longing never joined us more.