TO –
Published 1892. A dedication to T.’s wife Emily (as was A Dedication, II 683), it was written June 1891. The date is deduced from l. 6 (Emily was born 9 July 1813), and confirmed by T.Nbk 37. Martin (p. 576) notes that it is a wedding-anniversary tribute (June 1850).
There on the top of the down,
The wild heather round me and over me June’s high blue,
When I looked at the bracken so bright and the heather so brown,
I thought to myself I would offer this book to you,
This, and my love together,
To you that are seventy-seven,
With a faith as clear as the heights of the June-blue heaven,
And a fancy as summer-new
As the green of the bracken amid the gloom of the heather.