These very shepherds of their flocks,
  These loving lambs so meek to please,
Are worthy of recording words
  And honour in their due degrees: 
So I might live a hundred years,
  And roam from strand to foreign strand, 30
Yet not forget this flooded spring
  And scarce-saved lambs of Westmoreland.

A BIRTHDAY

My heart is like a singing bird
  Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
  That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
  Hang it with vair and purple dyes; 10
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
  In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
  Is come, my love is come to me.

REMEMBER

Sonnet

Remember me when I am gone away,
  Gone far away into the silent land;
  When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 
Remember me when no more day by day
  You tell me of our future that you planned: 
  Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray. 
Yet if you should forget me for a while
  And afterwards remember, do not grieve: 
  For if the darkness and corruption leave
  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
  Than that you should remember and be sad.

AFTER DEATH

Sonnet

The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
  And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
  Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. 
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
  And could not hear him; but I heard him say: 
  ‘Poor child, poor child:’  and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. 
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
  That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
    Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head: 
    He did not love me living; but once dead
  He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm though I am cold.

AN END

Love, strong as Death, is dead. 
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers: 
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting: 
On the last warm summer day 10
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey. 
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.