XLVI. "I, rooted here among the groves, But languidly adjust My vapid vegetable loves With anthers and with dust: XLVII. "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. XLVIII. "But could I, as in times foregone, XLIX. "She had not found me so remiss; L. O flourish high, with leafy towers, Pursue thy loves among the bowers, LI. O flourish, hidden deep in fern, LII. ""Tis little more: the day was warm; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm, LIII. "Her eyelids dropped their silken eaves, LIV. "I took the swarming sound of life- LV. "Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, LVI. "A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck, From head to ankle fine. LVII. “Then close and dark my arms I spread, LVIII. "But in a pet she started up, "I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree. He lies beside thee on the grass. LXI. "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.” LXII. Step deeper yet in herb and fern, Look further through the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place. LXIII. This fruit of thine by Love is blest, LXIV. I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, The warmth it thence shall win To riper life may magnetize LXV. But thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet LXVI. May never saw dismember thee, LXVII. O rock upon thy towery top LXVIII. All grass of silky feather grow- LXIX. The fat earth feed thy branchy root, LXX. Nor ever lightning char thy grain, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, LXXI. And hear me swear a solemn oath, Will I to Olive plight my troth, LXXII. And when my marriage-morn may fall, In wreath about her hair. LXXIII. And I will work in prose and rhyme, LXXIV. In which the swarthy ringdove sat, LXXV. Wherein the younger Charles abode LOVE. AND DUTY. Or love that never found his earthly close, Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O, shall the braggart shout For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Through madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become |