Joan o' the Wad from her own folk goes
With a garland woven of gipsy-rose; 
The palms of her hands and the palms of her feet 
Are dark with the stain of bitter-sweet. 
Here and there in her tresses brown 
Tosses a feather of thistle-down: 
About her waist for a girdle green 
She has threaded buds of the argentine. 

Between her breasts for a posy fair,
She has set a handful of maidenhair; 
About her neck for a torque of gold 
A chain of buttercups, fold on fold 
She has bound and wound; and she looks like spring — 
Joan o' the Wad gone wandering 
From the wild brown moor to the deep-walled town, 
Joan o' the Wad in her lime-green gown. 

The apple-bird on the apple-bough 
Whistles with no one to fret him now, 
With cry and chirrup more shrill and clear 
Than his own love-song in the spring o' the year. 
The laden bees going back to the hive 
Joan o' the Wad no more will drive: 
The peach grows red and the pear grows dun, 
With none to cover them up from the sun. 

She has left the cattle unmilked in chall; 
And the miners laugh as they go to bal. 
No more afraid of her pisky eyes 
Where life like the lightning comes and dies — 
And sorrow moves like a leaf, astir 
In a pool where the wind has drownéd her; 
And laughter leaps as the bubbles come 
On fishless ponds covered thick with scum. 

But lads at twilight are fain to hear 
A soft word said in their listening ear; 
And fain to see what they see no more — 
A green gown gleam by the stable-door. 
For towns are many and towns are full; 
But here in the country the water's cool, 
And honey's sweet and the hearts are deep. 
And the Pisky-loves are the loves to keep. 

Life! I know not what thou art,
   But know that thou and I must part;
   And when, or how, or where we met,
   I own to me’s a secret yet.
   But this I know, when thou art fled,
   Where’er they lay these limbs, this head,
   No clod so valueless shall be,
   As all that then remains of me.
   O whither, whither dost thou fly,
   Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
      And in this strange divorce,
Ah tell where I must seek this compound I?

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
      From whence thy essence came,
      Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
      From matter’s base encumbering weed?
         Or dost thou, hid from sight,
         Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivious years th’ appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say what art thou, when no more thou ’rt thee?

      Life! we’ve been long together,
      Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
         ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
         Perhaps ’t will cost a sigh, a tear;
         Then steal away, give little warning,
            Choose thine own time;
      Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime
            Bid me Good morning.