O muffle round thy knees with fern But tell me, did she read the name When last with throbbing heart I came "O yes, she wander'd round and round These knotted knees of mine, And found, and kiss'd the name she found, And sweetly murmur'd thine. "A teardrop trembled from its source, My sense of touch is something coarse, "Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light, "Her kisses were so close and kind, "And even into my inmost ring A pleasure I discern'd, Like those blind motions of the Spring, "Thrice-happy he that may caress The cushions of whose touch may press "I, rooted here among the groves, But languidly adjust My vapid vegetable loves With anthers and with dust: "For ah! my friend, the days were brief Whereof the poets talk, When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk. "But could I, as in times foregone, "She had not found me so remiss; I would have paid her kiss for kiss, O flourish high, with leafy towers, Pursue thy loves among the bowers O flourish, hidden deep in fern, ""Tis little more: the day was warm; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm And at my feet she lay. "Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes Thro' all the summer of my leaves "I took the swarming sound of life- "Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, "A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck, "Then close and dark my arms I spread, "But in a pet she started up, "And yet it was a graceful gift- As when I see the woodman lift "I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree. He lies beside thee on the grass. "O kiss him twice and thrice for me, That have no lips to kiss, For never yet was oak on lea Shall grow so fair as this." Step deeper yet in herb and fern, This fruit of thine by Love is blest, Where fairer fruit of Love may rest I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, But thou, while kingdoms overset, May never saw dismember thee, O rock upon thy towery top All grass of silky feather grow- The fat earth feed thy branchy root, The northern morning o'er thee shoot, Nor ever lightning char thy grain, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, And hear me swear a solemn oath, Will I to Olive plight my troth, And when my marriage morn may fall, In wreath about her hair. And I will work in prose and rhyme, In which the swarthy ringdove sat, Wherein the younger Charles abode LOVE AND DUTY. F love that never found his earthly close, OF What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts! Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. |