Oh, when I was in love with you,

The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.There’s one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,One season ruined of your little store.May will be fine next year as like as not:But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.We for a certainty are not the…

The numberless, the lonely,The thronger of the land,The leaf that hurts the hand.That thrives, come sun, come showers;Blow east, blow west, it springs;It peoples towns, and towersAbove the courts of Kings,And touch it and it stings.

The ship pours shining on the quayThe plunder of the world.Home is the hunter from the hill:Fast in the boundless snareAll flesh lies taken at his willAnd every fowl of air.‘Tis evening on the moorland free,The starlit wave is still:Home is the sailor from the sea,The hunter from the hill.

I brought them home unheeded;The hue was not the wear.So up and down I sow themFor lads like me to find,When I shall lie below them,A dead man out of mind.Some seed the birds devour,And some the season mars,But here and there will flower,The solitary stars,And fields will yearly bear themAs light-leaved spring comes on,And…

The poplars stand and trembleBy pools I used to know.There, in the windless night-time,The wanderer, marvelling why,Halts on the bridge to hearkenHow soft the poplars sigh.He hears: no more rememberedIn fields where I was known,Here I lie down in LondonAnd turn to rest alone.There, by the starlit fences,The wanderer halts and hearsMy soul that lingers…

With dandelions to tell the hoursThat never are told again.Oh may I squire you round the meadsAnd pick you posies gay?–‘Twill do no harm to take my arm.‘You may, young man, you may.’Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad,‘Tis now the blood runs gold,And man and maid had best be gladBefore the world is…