  ALL summer the breath of the roses around Exhales with a delicate, passionate sound; And when from a trellis, in holiday places, They croon and cajole, with their slumberous faces, A lad in the lane must slacken his paces. Fragrance of these is a voice in a bower: But low by the wall is my odorless flower, So pure, so controlled, not a fume is above her, That poet or bee should delay there and hover; For she is a silence, and therefore I love her. And never a mortal by morn or midnight Is called to her hid little house of delight; And she keeps from the wind, on his pillages olden, Upon a true stalk in rough weather upholden, Her winter-white gourd with the hollow moon-golden. While ardors of roses contend and increase, Methinks she has found how noble is peace, Like a spirit besought from the world to dissever, Not absent to men, tho’ resumed by the Giver, And dead long ago, being lovely for ever. Divider
|
|
