Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants

    Early sun on Beaulieu water

      Lights the undersides of oaks,

Clumps of leaves it floods and blanches,

All transparent glow the branches

      Which the double sunlight soaks;

    To her craft on Beaulieu water

    Clemency the General’s daughter

      Pulls across with even strokes.

    Schoolboy-sure she is this morning;

      Soon her sharpie’s rigg’d and free.

    Cool beneath a garden awning

      Mrs. Fairclough, sipping tea

And raising large long-distance glasses

As the little sharpie passes,

      Sighs our sailor girl to see:

    Tulip figure, so appealing,

      Oval face, so serious-eyed,

Tree-roots pass’d and muddy beaches.

On to huge and lake-like reaches,

      Soft and sun-warm, see her glide—

    Slacks the slim young limbs revealing,

    Sun-brown arm the tiller feeling—

      With the wind and with the tide.

    Evening light will bring the water,

      Day-long sun will burst the bud,

    Clemency, the General’s daughter,

      Will return upon the flood.

But the older woman only

Knows the ebb-tide leaves her lonely

      With the shining fields of mud.