I am so conscious of the girl,
Of brown ringlets how they curl
Seductively against a neck;
Sidelong I watch a clear profile,
And all the gleaming streaming while,
Flowing along without a check,
We drive an eager fervid wedge
Between each fleeting roadside hedge,
While ever the static distance waits
Beyond its far enchanted gates,
Its magic palings, rows on rows,
Which as we speed forever close
In circling bounds around our eyes
Beneath blue centripetal skies.
Ten little phantom horses race,
Slacken their speed or strain at trace,
Housed in their panoply of steel,
Well bitted and obedient to
Little subconscious things I do
With finger-tips on steering wheel.
But we, we two, are sitting still
Content to let them race their fill.
Our spinning wheels do fast unwind
The streaming road that floats behind;
And back there all the things we've seen,
Intense, significant, this day,
Along this high triumphal way,
Are just as if we had not been.
Settles again the dust we stirred
And still sings on the very bird,
As pertinent in evening hush
As when we heard him turn his tune
With pointed skill this afternoon -
The very bird, the very thrush,
From the same spray of the same bush;
In endless fields each buttercup
Still holds its shining chalice up;
The golden gorse's almond scent
On miles of sun-burned air is spent -
Yes, every mile that we have been
Smiles still, a picture though unseen,
Nor misses aught of our praise;
And country folk who chanced to glance it
Think not at all of our transit,
But go their own appropriate ways.
But for us two these things shall be
High wrought in memory's imagery;
Vivid, significant, each one.
That pretty lass shall ever wait
Milk-can in hand by that farm gate;
That red-combed hen shall cackle on;
That tossing orchard still shall bloom
Contrasting with the solemn gloom
Of those dark yews by that church wall -
In the locked gallery of my mind
My dosed eyes shall ever find
These pictures hang nor fade at all;
These glimpsed fields and folk shall stay
Forever with me from this day
Part of that past that's part of me;
And memories, like gossamer,
Spun by this summer's day with her,
Tangle forever every tree.