In tangled wreaths, in clustered gleaming stars,
In floating, curling sprays,
The golden flower comes shining through the woods
These February days;
Forth go all hearts, all hands, from out the town,
To bring her gayly in,
This wild, sweet Princess of far Florida—
The yellow jessamine.
The live-oaks smile to see...
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 the glossy growing box.
He longed for the peace and the silence
And the shadows...
Lightly stepped a yellow star
To its lofty place —
Loosed the Moon her silver hat
From her lustral Face —
All of Evening softly lit
As an Astral Hall —
Father, I observed to Heaven,
You are punctual.
Of Yellow was the outer Sky
In Yellower Yellow hewn
Till Saffron in Vermilion slid
Whose seam could not be shewn.
The Lightning is a yellow Fork
From Tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropt
The awful Cutlery
Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The Apparatus of the Dark
To ignorance revealed.
