Down in the Pleasant Valley

Down in the pleasant valley,
Miraculous and free,
She found the space where our true love
Would not despiséd be;
She built a safe abode there,
And we would spend each day
Beside the wishing river
Wiling time away.

Within our life of wonder,
My happiness could sing,
And she would even hint that I
Should make a rustic ring;
She showed me every hour
How the trees and meadows play,
And I was free forever
Wiling time away.

But life has many stories
For our soul before it ends,
One day we stopped pretending,
Matured to more than friends;
How could I not regret the love
That slowly went astray,
When I became another man
Wiling time away?

-Arthur L Wood (The canonised poem is Yeats’ Down by the Salley Gardens.)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50311/down-by-the-salley-gardens