The wood is bare: a river-mist is steeping
Only their stiffened boughs break silence, weeping
That lie upon the dank earth brown and rotten,
Forgotten with the spring, that is forgotten
Yet it was here we walked when ferns were springing,
Here found in summer, when the birds were singing
'Twas here we loved in sunnier days and greener;
I come to see her where I most have seen her,
For on this path, at every turn and corner,
Yet walks she with the slow step of a mourner,
So through my heart there winds a track of feeling
Whereto her phantom beauty ever stealing
About her steps the trunks are bare, the branches
And bleed from unseen wounds that no sun staunches,
And dead leaves wrap the fruits that summer planted:
The wanderer, loitering o'er the scene enchanted,
By Robert Bridges (1844-1930).
(British Poet Laureate, 1913.)
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