The dreadful hour is sighing for a moon
To light old lovers to the place of tryst,
And old footsteps from blessed acres soon
On old known pathways will be lightly prest;
And winds that went to eavesdrop since the noon,
Kinking[1] at some old tale told sweetly brief,
Will give a cowslick[2] to the yarrow leaf,[3]
And sling the round nut from the hazel down.
And there will be old yarn balls,[4] and old spells
In broken lime-kilns, and old eyes will peer
For constant lovers in old spidery wells,[5]
And old embraces will grow newly dear.
And some may meet old lovers in old dells,
And some in doors ajar in towns light-lorn;--
But two will meet beneath a gnarly thorn
Deep in the bosom of the windy fells.
Then when the night slopes home and white-faced day
Yawns in the east there will be sad farewells;
And many feet will tap a lonely way
Back to the comfort of their chilly cells,
And eyes will backward turn and long to stay
Where love first found them in the clover bloom--
But one will never seek the lonely tomb,
And two will linger at the tryst alway.
[Footnote 1: Provincially a kind of laughter.]
[Footnote 2: A curl of hair thrown back from the forehead: used
metaphorically here, and itself a metaphor taken from the curl of a
cow's tongue.]
[Footnote 3: Maidens on Hallows Eve pull leaves of yarrow, and, saying
over them certain words, put them under their pillows and so dream of
their true-loves.]
[Footnote 4: They also throw balls of yarn (which must be black) over
their left shoulders into old lime-kilns, holding one end and then
winding it in till they feel it somehow caught, and expect to see in
the darkness the face of their lover.]
[Footnote 5: Also they look for his face in old wells.]