Retrospect
Here, beside my Paris fire, I sit alone and ponder
All my life of long ago that lies so far asunder;
"Here, how came I thence?" I say, and greater grows the wonder
As I recall the farms and fields and placid hamlets yonder.
… See, the meadowsweet is white against the water-courses,
Marshy lands are kingcup-gay and bright with streams and sources;
Dew-bespangled shines the hill where half abloom the gorse is.
And all the northern fallows steam beneath the ploughing horses.
There's the red-brick-chimneyed house, the ivied haunt of swallows,
All its garden up and down and full of hills and hollows ;
Past the lawn, the sunken fence whose brink the laurel follows.
And then the knee-deep pasture where the herd for ever wallows!
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