Outlaws

Six good years of sweetness in the greenwood shaw. 
Sweetness plucked and eaten, spite of God and law. 
Six good years of loving under sun and rain — 
Now that law has spoken and not six hours remain. 
What have we to gird at, now the end is here? 
Law nor God can take from us those six years, my Dear. 

God indeed was kind to us, kinder than we knew. 
For we found forbidden fruit sweetness through and through. 
Hazel-nuts were brown for us, blackberries were sweet, 
Little brooks called pleasantly to our homeless feet. 
Nought we cared though on our track hound and bugle cried: 
Six years long the shaw itself fought upon Love's side. 

Glad am I of every sun that we saw arise, 
Leaves that matched your russet hair, flowers that matched your eyes: 
Glad am I of every sun that we watched go down. 
Frost that made the meadows white and the king-fern brown. 
Glad am I of nights and days full of quick alarms, 
Winds and rains that made you lie closer in my arms. 

Winds could never come between in the wildest weather: 
Desperate days and hunted nights we found sweet together. 
Rain and hail were good to us, and the leaping thunder, 
Not a sign in all the sky put our arms asunder.