“I WORKED NO WILE TO MEET YOU”

I worked no wile to meet you,

My sight was set elsewhere,

I sheered about to shun you,

And lent your life no care.

I was unprimed to greet you

At such a date and place,

Constraint alone had won you

Vision of my strange face!

You did not seek to see me

Then or at all, you said,

— Meant passing when you neared me,

But stumblingblocks forbade.

You even had thought to flee me,

By other mindings moved;

No influent star endeared me,

Unknown, unrecked, unproved!

What, then, was there to tell us

The flux of flustering hours

Of their own tide would bring us

By no device of ours

To where the daysprings well us

Heart-hydromels that cheer,

Till Time enearth and swing us

Round with the turning sphere.