The Blue Poetry Book / 7th. Ed. :: THE GIRL DESCRIBES HER FAWN

THE GIRL DESCRIBES HER FAWN

With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at my own fingers nursed; And as it grew, so every day It wax’d more white and sweet than they. It had so sweet a breath! and oft I blush’d to see its foot more soft And white, shall I say, than my hand? Nay, any lady’s of the land! It is a wond’rous thing how fleet ’Twas on those little silver feet: With what a pretty skipping grace It oft would challenge me the race; And when ’t had left me far away ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay, For it was nimbler much than hinds; And trod as if on the four winds.

I have a garden of my own, But so with roses overgrown, And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness, And all the spring-time of the year It only loved to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought it oft, where it should lie; Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes. For, in the flaxen lilies’ shade It like a bank of lilies laid. Upon the roses it would feed, Until its lips e’en seem’d to bleed; And then to me ’twould boldly trip, And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus itself to fill; And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold. Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within.

A. Marvell.

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