We will buy an old house
When we are richer;
One to arouse
The pen of an etcher:
Seeming – so mellow –
To have grown from the ground,
Sown in a hollow
With birches around.
Under an oaken
Quiet of beams
By the years unshaken
We’ll dream our dreams.
Beyond the lintel
We’ll see a mere
Keeping its crystal
Silences near;
Whence for our drink
Will flow a freshet
With primrosed brink,
And coo like a cushat.
And since at ten-forty
Each clock will be set,
Time must report by
The twinkling bat,
By thrushes’ orison,
Birch-leaf’s fall,
And the plumpening of cherries on
Lichened wall.
Not that we’d bother
With seasons or clocks,
While our hearts shone together
In love’s equinox.
Our youth, poised finely
Thus, would believe
That age can be only
Midsummer eve.