Serendipity

Here's an old favorite that I haven't read in years. And, now that I've just encountered my 73rd birthday, it's becoming a bit more personal.


With Rue My Heart Is Laden

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had.
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.




And another which I hadn't read before but which also seems to fit a melancholy mode.


Far In A Western Brookland

Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By ponds I used to know.

There, in the windless nighttime,
The wanderer, marveling why,
Halts on the bridge to hearken
How soft the poplars sight.

He hears: long since forgotten
In fields where I was known,
Here I lie down in London
And turn to rest alone.

There by the starlit fences,
The wanderer halts and hears
My soul that lingers sighing
About the glimmering weirs.


Both poems are by Alfred E. Houseman (1856--1936). They seem more appropriate for a late gloomy fall day, rather than a blistering hot day in summer.