To a Pastoral Poet

(H. E. B.)

Among my best I put your Book,
O Poet of the breeze and brook!
(That breeze and brook which blows and falls
More soft to those in city walls)
Among my best: and keep it still
Till down the fair grass-girdled hill,
Where slopes my garden-slip, there goes
The wandering wind that wakes the rose,
And scares the cohort that explore
The broad-faced sun-flower o'er and o'er,
Or starts the restless bees that fret
The bindweed and the mignonette.

Then I shall take your Book, and dream
I lie beside some haunted stream;
And watch the crisping waves that pass,
And watch the flicker in the grass;
And wait--and wait--and wait to see
The Nymph ... that never comes to me!