Agatha, by Alfred Austin, read for LibraVox.org by Kristen Hughes. She wanders in the April woods, let glisten with the fallen shower. She leans her face against the buds. She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour. She broodeth when the ring dove broods. The sun and flying clouds have power upon her cheek and changing moods. She cannot think she is alone, as all her senses warmly steal, floods of unrest.
She fears to own, and almost dreads to feel. Among the summer woodlands wide anew she roams no more alone, the joy she feared is at her side. Spring's blushing secret now is known, the primrose and its mates have flown, the thrushes ringing note have died, but glancing eye and glowing tone fall on her, from her god, her guide. She knows not, asks not what the goal.
She only feels she moves towards bliss, and yields her pure unquestioning soul. To touch and fondling kiss. And still she haunts those woodland ways, though all fond fancy finds their now, to mind of spring or summer days, are sodden trunk and songless bow. The past sits widowed on her brow.
Homewood she wends with wintery gaze, to walls that house a hollow vow, to hearth, where love hath ceased to blaze. Watches the clammy twilight wane, with grief too fixed for war or tear, and with her forehead against the pain, envies the dying year. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.