Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3826/The Lady's Walk
I know a Manor by the Thames;I've seen it oft through beechen stems In leafy Summer weather;We've moored the punt its lawns besideWhere peacocks strut in flaunting pride, The Muse and I together.
There I have seen the shadows growGigantic, as the sun sinks low, Leaving forlorn the dial;When zephyrs in the borders stir,Distilling stock and lavender To fill some fairy's phial.
There, when the dusk joins hands with night(I like to think the story's right— I had it from the Rector—Still, don't believe unless you choose!)Doth walk, between the shapen yews, A little pretty spectre,
The Lady Rose, a well-born maidWhose true-love in this garden glade— A bold, if faithless, follow—Had loved, but left her for the sakeOf venturing with Frankie Drake, And died at Puerto Bello;
While she—poor foolish loving Rose—Of heart-break, so the story goes, Died very shortly after,One day—as Art requires—when SpringHad set the hawthorns blossoming And waked the lanes to laughter.
And so adown these alleys dim,Where oft she'd kept a tryst with him, She nightly comes a-roaming;And, sorrowing still, yet finds content,I fancy, where "Sweet Themmes" is blent With flower-beds and the gloaming
Ah me, the leaf is down to-day;Does still the little phantom stray, Poor pretty ghost, a-shiver,When sad flowers droop their weary headsAlong the chill Autummal beds Beside the misty river?
Or does it, at the year's decline—As sensible as Proserpine— When Autumn skies do harden,Go down and coax the seeds to growTill daffodillies stand a-row And April's in the garden?
I cannot tell; what's more, I doubtWe've other things to think about This sorrowful November;I only know for such sad hoursThat dainty ghosts and Summer flowers Are pleasant to remember.