To the wall of the old green garden
A butterfly quivering came;
His wings on the sombre lichens
Played like a yellow flame.
He looked at the gray geraniums,
And the sleepy four-o’-clocks,
He looked at the low lanes bordered
With...
White england shouldering from the sea,
Green England in thy rainy veil,
Old island-nest of Liberty
And loveliest Song, all hail!
God guard thee long from scath and grief!
Not any wish of ours would mar
One richly glooming ivy-leaf,...
The puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o’er them sat singing on his perch.
“Happy be! for fair are ye!” the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
“Vanity, oh, vanity...
So, the powder ’s low, and the larder ’s clean,
And surrender drapes, with its blacks impending,
All the stage for a sorry and sullen scene:
Yet indulge me my whim of a madcap ending!
Let us once more fill, ere the final chill,
Every vein with the...
He loved her, having felt his love begin
With that first look,—as lover oft avers.
He made pale flowers his pleading ministers,
Impressed sweet music, drew the springtime in
To serve his suit; but when he could not win,
Forgot her face and those gray eyes...
The garden within was shaded,
And guarded about from sight;
The fragrance flowed to the south wind,
The fountain leaped to the light.
And the street without was narrow,
And dusty, and hot, and mean;
But the bush that bore white roses,...
“not ye who have stoned, not ye who have smitten us,” cry
The sad, great souls, as they go out hence into dark,—
“Not ye we accuse, though for you was our passion borne;
And ye we reproach not, who silently passed us by.
We forgive blind eyes and the ears...
“now since mine even is come at last,—
For I have been the sport of steel,
And hot life ebbeth from me fast,
And I in saddle roll and reel,—
Come bind me, bind me on my steed!
Of fingering leech I have no need!”
The chaplain clasped his mailëd knee...
