Robert Seymour Bridges

* * *

I found to-day out walking
  The flower my love loves best.
What, when I stooped to pluck it,
  Could dare my hand arrest?

Was it a snake lay curling
  About the root’s thick crown?
Or did some hidden bramble
  Tear my hand reaching down?

There was no snake uncurling,
  And no thorn wounded me;
’Twas my heart checked me, sighing
  She is beyond the sea.