Collected poems, 1901-1918/Estranged

by Walter de la Mare

ESTRANGED

NO one was with me there —
Happy I was — alone;
Yet from the sunshine suddenly
⁠A joy was gone.

A bird in an empty house
Sad echoes makes to ring,
Flitting from room to room
⁠On restless wing:

Till from its shades he flies,
And leaves forlorn and dim
The narrow solitudes
⁠So strange to him.

So, when with fickle heart
I joyed in the passing day,
A presence my mood estranged
⁠Went grieved away.