"The Pale Green Alder-Way"

The Pale Green Alder-Way

Ah, May comes merrily o’er the hill 

And passes with twinkling feet, 

With invitation in beck and glance, 

And lure in her laughter sweet; 

But I look down the pale green alder-way, 

And “He never will come again,” I say. 

At morn the red-vested robin calls 

His love to his shy brown mate, 

And half forgetting, I thrill to hear 

The speech of the little gate; 

Then I look down the pale green alder-way, 

And “He never will come again,” I say. 

And when the hush of the golden noon 

Swims up to the deep blue sky, 

My poor heart leaps with the old delight 

If only a step comes nigh; 

But I look down the pale green alder-way, 

And “He never will come again,” I say. 

When evening purples the distant hills, 

And none but the stars may see, 

I kneel me here, while the hours go by, 

Slowly and silently, 

And “Ah, up the pale green alder-way 

If he only might come again!” I pray. 

O pipes of summer and flutes of spring! 

O bird and blossom and brook! 

My heart responds to thy lure and call, 

Then sadly I turn and look 

Down the path where the pale green alders grow, 

For he never will come again, I know. 

"The Pale Green Alder-Way" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems (1903).