The rough briar tore my bleeding palms; the hemlock,
Brow high, did strike my forehead as I pas'd;
Yet trod I not the wild-flower in my path,
Nor bruised the wild-bird's egg.
Was this the end?
Why grew we then together i' the same plot?
Why fed we the same fountain? drew the same sun?
Why were our mothers branches of one stem?
Why were we one in all things, save in that
Where to have been one had been the roof and crown
Of all I hoped and fear'd? if that same nearness
Were father to this distance, and that _one_
Vauntcourier this _double_? If affection
Living slew Love, and Sympathy hew'd out
The bosom-sepulchre of Sympathy.

Chiefly I sought the cavern and the hill
Where last we roam'd together, for the sound
Of the loud stream was pleasant, and the wind
Came wooingly with violet smells. Sometimes
All day I sat within the cavern-mouth,
Fixing my eyes on those three cypress-cones
Which spired above the wood; and with mad hand
Tearing the bright leaves of the ivy-screen,
I cast them in the noisy brook beneath,
And watch'd them till they vanished from my sight
Beneath the bower of wreathed eglantines:
And all the fragments of the living rock,
(Huge splinters, which the sap of earliest showers,
Or moisture of the vapour, left in clinging,