O Month when they who love must love and wed!
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,
And seek to tell the memories he had brought
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?
I know not if the rosy showers shed
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read
Thee best who in the ancient time did say
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold
In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,
To sun themselves once more before they die.
I Got me flowers to straw Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.
The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume,
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.
Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.
I send you a decrepit flower
That nature sent to me
At parting -- she was going south
And I designed to stay --
Her motive for the souvenir
If sentiment for me
Or circumstances prudential
Withheld invincibly --
She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind --
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find --
Leaving on nature -- a Default
As Cricket or as Bee --
But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie --
I hide myself within my flower,
That fading from your Vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me --
Almost a loneliness.
Where Roses would not dare to go,
What Heart would risk the way --
And so I send my Crimson Scouts
To sound the Enemy --
It will be Summer -- eventually.
Ladies -- with parasols --
Sauntering Gentlemen -- with Canes --
And little Girls -- with Dolls --
Will tint the pallid landscape --
As 'twere a bright Bouquet --
Thro' drifted deep, in Parian --
The Village lies -- today --
The Lilacs -- bending many a year --
Will sway with purple load --
The Bees -- will not despise the tune --
Their Forefathers -- have hummed --
The Wild Rose -- redden in the Bog --
The Aster -- on the Hill
Her everlasting fashion -- set --
And Covenant Gentians -- frill --
How many Flowers fail in Wood --
Or perish from the Hill --
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful --
How many cast a nameless Pod
Upon the nearest Breeze --
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight --
It bear to Other Eyes --
And this of all my Hopes
This, is the silent end
Bountiful colored, my Morning rose
Early and sere, its end
Never Bud from a Stem
Stepped with so gay a Foot
Never a Worm so confident
Bored at so brave a Root
A full fed Rose on meals of Tint
A Dinner for a Bee
In process of the Noon became -
Each bright Mortality
The Forfeit is of Creature fair
Itself, adored before
Submitting for our unknown sake
To be esteemed no more --
Nature can do no more
She has fulfilled her Dyes
Whatever Flower fail to come
Of other Summer days
Her crescent reimburse
If other Summers be
Nature's imposing negative
Nulls opportunity --
Flowers -- Well -- if anybody
Can the ecstasy define --
Half a transport -- half a trouble --
With which flowers humble men:
Anybody find the fountain
From which floods so contra flow --
I will give him all the Daisies
Which upon the hillside blow.
Too much pathos in their faces
For a simple breast like mine --
Butterflies from St. Domingo
Cruising round the purple line --
Have a system of aesthetics --
Far superior to mine.