'Sometimes We Hardly Wanted You'

SOMETIMES we hardly wanted you,
Our days together were so rare:
Hill-tops, brook-hollows, and the blue
Castles of windless sunny air;
Camp-fires by certain secret springs,
Green trails that only we could trace —
Love made us misers of these things.
And you, still wandering in space,
Little and lone and undiscerned —
We did not know we needed you.

Strange! — For your bright warm self is burned
Into our hearts, till all that blue
Of morning, and pearl-mist of night,
Wind, water, sun, — those secret ways, —
Mean You; our youth and lovely light,
Our laughter and our length of days!