THY verse is like a cool and shady well 
 Lying a-dream within some moss-walled close 
 Far from the common way, where violets doze 
In green-deep grass beside the sweet hare-bell. 
 
And each wayfarer as he stoopeth there 
 Doth spy a face that is most like his own, 
 So weary and?ah me!?so woe-begone 
That almost he forgetteth his deep care. 
 
There is a royal restraint in thy sad rhyme, 
 Dis-calmèd calm, and passion passionless, 
 And mellowed is all taint of bitterness 
Into the harmony of that still time 
 
When leaves are yellowing in the sallow sun 
 And evening?s bloom is flush across the sky, 
When haggard summer tottereth in his run 
 And gracious moist-eyed autumn draweth nigh. 
 
O king! majestical in thy decline 
As in thy Spring,?might such an end be mine!