" How I love trees! " she said ...
It was the only word,
Not banal, not absurd,
Of all she uttered.

I took her through the lane,
Where the elms overhead
Were yellowing, and red,
Ochre, and amber stain
Lit all the hawthorn hedge.

And on the little bridge,
Between a field and a field,
By where a hay-rick stood
That hid us from the road,
Sudden I made her yield.

Not for the words she said,
Which only could give me pain,
Poor words! blind, witless, ... dead;
But for her white forehead;
Her eye-brows arched and dark;
Her eyes, the Pheidias-mark
Of nostrils chiselled
With fine and lively care;

Her lips, her glowing skin,
Wind-bitten, made more fair
Through chill and autumn rain,
And for the lights therein
— A veined pearl; the note
Of ears half hid, her hair;
And for her white, warm throat,
Her hands, her hips. ...
For these,
Not — God! — for gift of speech,
Nor any word-spun snare,
Save that one lonely cry,
That, like a squirrel, shy,
Elusive, slipped the rein
Of her sweet, blockish brain,
Leaped in the live, white air —
Flaming! — " How I love trees! "

For these, only for these,
Under the yellowing elms,
Grey elder, brittle and bare,
Browned hawthorn, ochre beech,
Captive I held her there,
Laughing, cynical, vain,
Slender, splendidly fair,
Under the autumn rain.