Apprehension
i.
The hills come down on every side,
The marsh lies green below,
The green, green valley is long and wide.
Where the grass grows thick with the rush beside,
And the white sheep come and go.
Down in the marsh it is green and still;
You may linger all the day.
Till a shadow slants from a western hill.
And the colour goes out of the flowers in the rill.
And the sheep look ghostly gray.
And never a change in the great green flat
Till the change of night, my friend.
O wide green valley where we two sat.
How I wished that our lives were as peaceful as that.
And seen from end to end!
ii.
O foolish dream, to hope that such as I
Who answer only to thine easiest moods.
Should fill thy heart, as o'er my heart there broods
The perfect fulness of thy memory!
I flit across thy soul as white birds fly
Across the untrodden desert solitudes:
A moment's flash of wings; fair interludes
That leave unchanged the eternal sand and sky.
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