Where She Once Lived

 

This is a place I love; the lawns are clipped,

the yew-hedges like shadowy green walls,

the beds stone-edged and elegantly shaped,

and avenues of birches, leafy halls

where minstrel-birds sing measured madrigals.

 

A sheet of water slumbers under flags

that raise their yellow standards to the noon,

stately and straight, robed in heraldic rags,

and all the garden seems as in a swoon,

and in the shallows now the small frogs croon.

 

This is a place I love; the old stone house

with billowing breezy curtains, winding stairs

so silent one can hear the scampering mouse.

Where she once lived now live the pleasant airs;

we feel them come with tears, but happy tears.