I.

As when, pursued by some swift Wind and bold Freed from the hollow dark Æolian hold, A cloud across the face of heaven is blown, And sunshine ceases from the fields, as mown By that long shadow sweeping o’er the wold, And the kind world turns cold— So o’er our chosen day Sails now a shadowing cloud that sweeps the sun away.

Our chosen day, to Memory dedicate: To Memory, goddess great, A Proserpine that mid the dip and swell Of her wide meadows dim with asphodel Keeps aye one circle blest Lit with purpureal light unlike the rest: The field of our first youth, as luminous Through soberer recollections, as the place Where looked the Dardan on his father’s face In the land nebulous. The verdure of that valley is Spring’s own Ampler the air—then, limits were not known To us that breathed it; all that since has been Has its free freshness to our spirits proved. Oh circle blest indeed! Dear, dear the faces that therein have moved,— Sad, sad to know it changelessly decreed We may no more behold them, save therein!