I tend my flowers for thee --
Bright Absentee!
My Fuchsia's Coral Seams
Rip -- while the Sower -- dreams --
This is the hardest part:
When I came back to life
I was a good family dog
and not too friendly to strangers.
Expanse cannot be lost --
Not Joy, but a Decree
Is Deity --
His Scene, Infinity --
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Death is here and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above is death--and we are death.
The frog croaks loud, and maidens dare not pass
But fear the noisome toad and shun the grass;
And on the sunny banks they dare not go
Where hissing snakes run to the flood below.
You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize,
Both by the judgment of the English eyes
And of some sent from that sweet enemy France;
In this short Life
That only lasts an hour
How much -- how little -- is
Within our power
Sweet dreams, form a shade
O'er my lovely infant's head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!
To gather flowers, Sappha went,
And homeward she did bring
Within her lawny continent,
The treasure of the Spring.
Must thou go, my glorious Chief,
Severed from thy faithful few?
Who can tell thy warrior's grief,
Maddening o'er that long adieu?
Honey from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?
The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Fled are the frosts, and now the fields appear
Reclothed in fresh and verdant diaper;
Thaw'd are the snows; and now the lusty Spring
Gives to each mead a neat enamelling;
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
Woman's faith, and woman's trust -
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
No spring nor summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnall face.
Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot 'scape.
THE PROLOGUE.
"IN faith, Squier, thou hast thee well acquit,
And gentilly; I praise well thy wit,"
Quoth the Franklin; "considering thy youthe