Slow days have passed that make a year, <br />Slow hours that make a day, <br />Since I could take my first dear love <br />And kiss him the old way; <br />Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek, <br />Dear Christ, this month of May. <br /> <br />I lie among the tall green grass <br />That bends above my head <br />And covers up my wasted face <br />And folds me in its bed <br />Tenderly and lovingly <br />Like grass above the dead. <br /> <br />Dim phantoms of an unknown ill <br />Float through my tired brain; <br />The unformed visions of my life <br />Pass by in ghostly train; <br />Some pause to touch me on the cheek, <br />Some scatter tears like rain. <br /> <br />A shadow falls along the grass <br />And lingers at my feet; <br />A new face lies between my hands -- <br />Dear Christ, if I could weep <br />Tears to shut out the summer leaves <br />When this new face I greet. <br /> <br />Still it is but the memory <br />Of something I have seen <br />In the dreamy summer weather <br />When the green leaves came between: <br />The shadow of my dear love’s face -- <br />So far and strange it seems. <br /> <br />The river ever running down <br />Between its grassy bed, <br />The voices of a thousand birds <br />That clang above my head, <br />Shall bring to me a sadder dream <br />When this sad dream is dead. <br /> <br />A silence falls upon my heart <br />And hushes all its pain. <br />I stretch my hands in the long grass <br />And fall to sleep again, <br />There to lie empty of all love <br />Like beaten corn of grain.<br /><br />Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-year-and-a-day/
