The Miller's Daughter

I met in all the close green ways,

While walking with my line and rod,

The wealthy miller's mealy face,

Like the moon in an ivytod.

He looked so jolly and so good—

While fishing in the milldam-water,

I laughed to see him as he stood,

And dreamt not of the miller's daughter.

I see the wealthy miller yet—

His double chin—his portly size;

And who that knew him could forget

The husy wrinkles round his eyes,

The slow wise smile, that, round about

His dusty forehead drily curled,

Seemed half-within, and half-without,

And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit—

Three fingers round the old silver cup:

I see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest—gray eyes lit up

With summer lightnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad,

So healthy, sound and clear and whole,

His memory scarce makes me sad.

Yet fill my glass,—give me one kiss;

My darling Alice, we must die.

There's somewhat in this world amiss,

Shall be unriddled by and by.

There's somewhat flows to us in life,

But more is taken quite away.

Pray, Alice, pray, my own sweet wife,

That we may die the selfsame day.

My father's mansion, mounted high,

Looked down upon the village-spire.

I was a long and listless boy,

And son and heir unto the squire.

In these dear walls, where I and you

Have lived and loved alone so long,

Each morn my sleep was broken thro'

By some wild skylark's matin song.

I often heard the cooing dove

In firry woodlands mour alone,

But ere I saw your eyes, my love,

I had no motion of my own:

For scarce my life with fancy played,

Before I dreamed that pleasant dream,

Still hither, thither, idly swayed,

Like the long mosses in the stream.

Sometimes I whistled in the wind,

Sometimes I angled, thought and deed

Torpid, as swallows left behind

That winter 'neath the floating weed:

At will to wander everyway

From brook to brook my sole delight,

As lithe eels over meadows gray

Oft shift their glimmering pool by night.

How dear to me in youth, my love,

Was every thing about the mill,

The black and silent pool above,

The pool beneath that ne'er stood still,

The mealsacks on the whitened floor,

The dark round of the dripping wheel,

The very air about the door

Made misty with the floating meal!

I loved from off the bridge to hear

The rushing sound the water made,

And see the fish that everywhere

In the backcurrent glanced and played;

Low down the tall flagflower that sprung

Beside the noisy steppingstones,

And the massed chestnutboughs that hung

Thickstudded over with white cones.

Remember you that pleasant day

When, after roving in the woods,

(‘Twas April then) I came and lay

Beneath those gummy chestnutbuds

That glistened in the April blue.

Upon the slope so smooth and cool,

I lay and never thought of you,

But angled in the deep millpool.

A water-rat from off the bank

Plunged in the stream. With idle care,

Downlooking thro' the sedges rank,

I saw your troubled image there.

Upon the dark and dimpled beck

It wandered like a floating light,

A full fair form, a warm white neck,

And two white arms—how rosy white!

If you remember, you had set

Upon the narrow casement-edge

A long green box of mignonette,

And you were leaning from the ledge.

I raised my eyes at once: above

They met two eyes so blue and bright,

Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,

That they have never lost their light.

That slope beneath the chestnut tall

Is wooed with choicest breaths of air:

Methinks that I could tell you all

The cowslips and the kingcups there.

Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,

Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,

Each quaintly-folded cuckoopint,

And silver-paly cuckooflower.

In rambling on the eastern wold,

When thro' the showery April nights

Their hueless crescent glimmered cold,

From all the other village-lights

I knew your taper far away.

My heart was full of trembling hope.

Down from the wold I came and lay

Upon the dewyswarded slope.

The white chalkquarry from the hill

Upon the broken ripple gleamed,

I murmured lowly, sitting still

While round my feet the eddy streamed:

"Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,

The mirror where her sight she feeds,

The song she sings, the air she breathes,

The letters of the book she reads."

Sometimes I saw you sit and spin,

And, in the pauses of the wind,

Sometimes I heard you sing within,

Sometimes your shadow crossed the blind.

At last you rose, and moved the light,

And the long shadow of the chair

Flitted across into the night,

And all the casement darkened there.

I loved, but when I dared to speak

My love, the lanes were white with May,

Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek

Flushed like the coming of the day.

Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy,

You would, and would not, little one,

Altho' I pleaded tenderly,

And you and I were all alone.

Remember you the clear moonlight,

That whitened all the eastern ridge,

When o'er the water, dancing white,

I stepped upon the old millbridge.

I heard you whisper from above

A lutetoned whisper, "I am here;"

I murmured, "Speak again, my love,

The stream is loud: I cannot hear."

I heard, as I have seemed to hear,

When all the under-air was still,

The low voice of the glad new year

Call to the freshly-flowered hill.

I heard, as I have often heard

The nightingale in leavy woods

Call to its mate, when nothing stirred

To left or right but falling floods.

Come, Alice, sing to me the song

I made you on our marriageday,

When, arm in arm, we went along

Half-tearfully, and you were gay

With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,

The while you sing that song, to hear

The millwheel turning in the stream,

And the green chestnut whisper near.

SONG.

I wish I were her earring,

Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,

(So might my shadow tremble

Over her downy cheek,)

Hid in her hair, all day and night,

Touching her neck so warm and white.

I wish I were the girdle

Buckled about her dainty waist,

That her heart might beat against me,

In sorrow and in rest.

I should know well if it beat right,

I'd clasp it round so close and tight.

I wish I were her necklace,

So might I ever fall and rise

Upon her balmy bosom

With her laughter, or her sighs.

I would lie round so warm and light

I would not be unclasped at night.

A trifle, sweet! which true love spells—

True love interprets right alone;

For o'er each letter broods and dwells,

(Like light from running waters thrown

On flowery swaths) the blissful flame

Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night,

With pulses thrilling thro' his frame

Do inly tremble, starrybright.

How I waste language—yet in truth

You must blame love, whose early rage

Made me a rhymster in my youth,

And over-garrulous in age.

Sing me that other song I made,

Half-angered with my happy lot,

When in the breezy limewood-shade,

I found the blue forget-me-not.

SONG.

All yesternight you met me not.

My ladylove, forget me not.

When I am gone, regret me not,

But, here or there, forget me not.

With your arched eyebrow threat me not,

And tremulous eyes, like April skies,

That seem to say, 'forget me not.'

I pray you, love, forget me not.

In idle sorrow set me not;

Regret me not: forget me not:

Oh! leave me not; oh, let me not

Wear quite away;—forget me not.

With roguish laughter fret me not

From dewy eyes, like April skies,

That ever look, 'forget me not,'

Blue as the blue forget-me-not.

Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife,

Round my true heart thine arms entwine,

My other dearer life in life,

Look thro' my very soul with thine.

Untouched with any shade of years,

May those kind eyes for ever dwell,

They have not shed a many tears,

Dear eyes! since first I knew them well.

I've half a mind to walk, my love,

To the old mill across the wolds,

For look! the sunset from above

Winds all the vale in rosy folds,

And fires your narrow casementglass,

Touching the sullen pool below.

On the chalk-hill the bearded grass

Is dry and dewless. Let us go.