The Trespasser

When last we came this pleasant way The hedgerows blossomed, high and hard, And blue with shade the violets lay In every cherry-lightened yard. Now, in commemorative rain, I walk the quiet way alone, And there are violets again As blue as I have ever known. Useless to barricade the flesh To splendid branch and flower-row: I see the cherry, flaked and fresh, And smell the violet as I go Perplexed past wetted flowerbed And boxwood glimmering into leaf, Companionless, disquieted, And fearfully as any thief— Smarting of some sacrilege Too profligate to understand, As one who disavows a pledge And treads repudiated land.