By The Weir

A scent of Esparto grass, and again I recall     That hour we spent by the weir of the paper-mill     Watching together the curving thunderous fall     Of frothing amber, bemused by the roar until     My mind was as blank as the speckless sheets that wound     On the hot steel ironing-rollers perpetually turning     In the humming dark rooms of the mill: all sense and discerning     By the stunning and dazzling oblivion of hill-waters drowned.     And my heart was empty of memory and hope and desire     Till, rousing, I looked afresh on your face as you gazed,     Behind you an old gnarled fruit-tree in one still fire     Of innumerable flame in the sun of October blazed,     Scarlet and gold that the first white frost would spill     With eddying flicker and patter of dead leaves falling,     looked on your face, as an outcast from Eden recalling     A vision of Eve as she dallied bewildered and still     By the serpent-encircled tree of knowledge that flamed     With gold and scarlet of good and evil, her eyes     Rapt on the river of life: then bright and untamed     By the labour and sorrow and fear of a world that dies     Your ignorant eyes looked up into mine; and I knew     That never our hearts should be one till your young lips had tasted     The core of the bitter-sweet fruit, and wise and toil-wasted     You should stand at my shoulder an outcast from Eden too.