As one who after long and far-spent years
Comes on his mistress in an hour of sleep,
And half-surprised that he can silence keep
Stands smiling o'er her through a flash of tears,
To see how sweet and self-same she appears;
Till at his touch, with little moving creep
Of joy, she wakes from out her calmness deep,
And then his heart finds voice, and dances round her ears —
So I, first coming on my haunts again,
In pause and stillness of the early prime,
Stood thinking of the past and present time
With earnest eyesight, scarcely crossed with pain;
Till the fresh moving leaves, and startling birds,
Loosened my long-suspended breath in words.