Old Man, or Lad's-love,- in the name there's nothing to one that knows not Lad's-love, or Old Man. the hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree, growing with rosemary and lavendel. Even to one that knows it well, the names half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is: At last, what that is clings not to the names in spite of time. And yet I like the names...

Old Man


The herb itself I like not, but for certain
I love it, as some day the child will love it
who plucks a feather from the door-side bush
whenever she goes in or out of the house.
Often she waits there, snipping the tips and
shriveling the shreds at last on to the path,
Perhaps thinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs
Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still
But half as tall as she, though it is as old;
So well she clips it. Not a word she says;
And I can only wonder how much hereafter
She will remember, with that bitter scent,
Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees
Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door,
A low thick bush beside the door, and me
Forbidding her to pick.

As for myself,
Where first I meet the bitter scene is lost.
I, too, often shrived the grey shreds.
Sniff then and think and sniff again and try
Once more to think what it is I am remembering.
Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,
Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,
With no meaning, that this bitter one.

I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray
And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;
Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait

For what I should, yet never can, remember:
No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush
Of Lad's-love, or Old Man, no child beside,
Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;
Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end...

Me after writing this story !...