Blooms of the Berry Part 7

Sheep in the wattled folds Dreamily bleating, Dim on the thistled wolds, Where, glad with meeting, Morn the thin Night enfolds.

IV.

Sleep on the moaning sea Hushing his trouble; Rest on the cares that be Hued in Life's bubble, Calm on the woes of me....

V.

Mist from the mountain height Hurriedly fleeting; Star in the locks of Night Throbbing and beating, Thrilled with the coming light.

VI.

Flocks on the musky strips; Pearl in the fountain; Winds from the forest's lips; Red on the mountain; Dawn from the Orient trips.

JUNE.

I.

Hotly burns the amaryllis With its stars of red; Whitely rise the stately lilies From the lily bed; Withered shrinks the wax May-apple 'Neath its parasol; Chilly dies the violet dapple In its earthly hall.

II.

March is but a bl.u.s.t'ring liar, April a sad love, May a milkmaid from the byre Flirting in the grove.

June is rich in many blossoms, She's the one I'll woo; Health swells in her sunny bosoms, She's my sweetheart true.

THE JESSAMINE AND THE MORNING-GLORY.

I.

On a sheet of silver the morning-star lay Fresh, white as a baby child, And laughed and leaped in his lissome way, On my parterre of flowers smiled.

For a morning-glory's spiral bud Of sh.e.l.l-coned tallness slim Stood ready to burst her delicate hood And bloom on the dawning dim: A princess royal in purple born To beauty and pride in the balmy morn.

II.

And she shook her locks at the morning-star And her raiment scattered wide; Low laughed at a hollyhock's scimetar, Its jewels of buds to deride.

The pomegranate near, with fingers of flame, The hot-faced geraniums nigh, Their proud heads bowed to the queenly dame For they knew her state was high: The fuchsia like a bead of blood Bashfully blushed in her silvery hood.

III.

All wit that this child of the morning light Was queen of the morn and them, That the orient star in his beams of white Was her prince in a diadem; For lavish he showered those pearls that flash And cl.u.s.ter the front of her smock; From his lordly fingers of rays did dash Down zephyrs her crib to rock.

But a jessamine pale 'neath the arbor grew, Meek, selfless, and sweet, and a virgin true.

IV.

But the morning-glory disdained her birth, Of her chast.i.ty made a scorn: "I marvel," she said, "if thy mother earth Was not sick when thou wast born!

Thou art pale as an infant an hour dead-- Wan thing, dost weary our eye!"

And she weakly laughed and stiffened her head And turned to her love i' the sky.

But the jessamine turned to the rose beside With a heavy glance and but sadly sighed.

V.

And the orient grew to a wealth of bars 'Neath which foam-fires churned, And the princess proud saw her lord of stars In a torrid furnace burned; And the giant of life with his breath of flame Glared down with one red eye, And 'neath his breath this gorgeous dame In her diamonds did wilt and die; But the jessamine fragrant waxed purer with light; For my lady's bosom I culled it that night.

THE HEREMITE TOAD.

A human skull in a church-yard lay; For the church was a wreck, and the tombstones old On the graves of their dead were rotting away To the like of their long-watched mould.

And an heremite toad in this desolate seat Had made him an hermitage long agone, Where the ivy frail with its delicate feet Could creep o'er his cell of bone.

And the ground was dark, and the springing dawn, When it struck from the tottering stones of each grave A glimmering silver, the dawn drops wan This skull and its ivy would lave.

The night her crescent had thinly hung From a single star o'er the shattered wall, And its feeble light on the stone was flung Where I sat to hear him call.

And I heard this heremite toad as he sate In the gloom of his ghastly hermitage, To himself and the gloom all hollowly prate, Like a misanthropic sage:

"O, beauty is well and is wealth to all, But wealth without beauty _makes_ fair; And beauty with wealth brings wooers tall Whom she snares in her golden hair.

"Tho' beauty be well and be wealth to all, And wealth without beauty draw men, Beauty must come to the vaulted wall, And what is wealth to her then?...

"This skeleton face was beautiful erst; These sockets could mammonites sway; So she barter'd her beauty for gold accurs'd-- But both have vanished away.

"But beauty is well when the mind it reveals More beautiful is than the head; For beauty and wealth the tomb congeals, But the mind grows lovelier dead."

And he blinked at the moon from his grinning cell, And the darnels and burdocks around Bowed down in the night, and I murmured "Well!"

For I deemed his judgment sound.