Poem of the Day

Oddly enough, I’ve never posted anything by Conrad Aiken, though I’ve been to Savannah and seen his grave in Bonaventure Cemetery.

Music I Heard
By Conrad Aiken

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, beloved,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart that you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,
—They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

I just think this is a neat poem. I especially like the line: “I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow.”

Yellow Glove
By Naomi Shihab Nye

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and
governments?

I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t
kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons,
drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one
Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose
the yellow gloves.

I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a
stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would
sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream,
sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths?
I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t
have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that
was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s
eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one
to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks,
lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to
the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don’t get in my
bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.

The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and
drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t
fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to
be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without
walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next
June I was stirring the stream like soup, telling my brother dinner
would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I was it.
The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.

Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it
in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever
know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked
home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but
returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a
world of bankbooks and stereos?

Part of the difference between floating and going down.

As requested by my dear Ryan, here is a Shel Silverstein poem. I dedicate it to myself and all the others who suffered through the oppressive heat at ACL last weekend. I only went as far as the actions in the first verse, but I feel confident that had I taken my skin off and sat around in my bones, I’d still have been hot!

It’s Hot!
By Shel Silverstein

It’s hot!
I can’t get cool,
I’ve drunk a quart of lemonade,
I think I’ll take my shoes off
And sit around in the shade.

It’s hot!
My back is sticky,
The sweat rolls down my chin.
I think I’ll take my clothes off
And sit around in my skin.

It’s hot!
I’ve tried with ‘lectric fans,
And pools and ice cream cones.
I think I’ll take my skin off
And sit around in my bones.

It’s still hot!

This is quite depressing, but I can’t help being drawn to it anyway.

The Last Leaf
By Oliver Wendell Holmes

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
      And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o’er the ground
      With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
      Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
      Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And looks at all he meets
      Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
      ”They are gone.”

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
      In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
      On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said
Poor old lady, she is dead
      Long ago
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
      In the snow;

But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
      Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
      In his laugh.

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
      At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
      Are so queer!

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
      In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
      Where I cling.

I think this is the last Emily Dickinson poem I have in my file. I’ll have to find some more.

The Bustle in a House
By Emily Dickinson

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth—

The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.

I’m not sure the title of this poem is really indicative of the theme, but you can’t go wrong with a little Longfellow!

Nature
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er,
   Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
   Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
   Nor wholly reassured and comforted
   By promises of others in their stead,
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
   Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
      Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay,
   Being too full of sleep to understand
      How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

This one has been in the queue for a while. It’s a little one, but I read it in a anthology and it stuck out, so I saved it.

Memory
By Helen Hoyt

I can remember our sorrow, I can remember our laughter;
I know that surely we kissed and cried and ate together;
I remember our places and games, and plans we had—
The little house and how all came to naught—
Remember well:
But I cannot remember our love,
I cannot remember our love.

For the next three days, I will be here. I should still be able to post a poem every day (unless the power goes out as the media circus would have us believe). Anyway, I just got a book of poems by Archibald MacLeish, at a fellow book lover’s recommendation. Here’s a selection.

Nocturne
By Archibald MacLeish

The earth, still heavy and warm with afternoon,
Dazed by the moon:

The earth, tormented with the moon’s light,
Wandering in the night:

La, La, The moon is a lovely thing to see—
The moon is an agony.

Full moon, moon rise, the old old pain
Of brightness in dilated eyes,

The ache of still
Elbows leaning on the narrow sill,

Of motionless cold hands upon the wet
Marble of the parapet,

Of open eyelids of a child behind
The crooked glimmer of the windown blind,

Of sliding faint remindful squares
Across the lamplight on the rocking-chairs:

Why do we stand so late
Stiff fingers on the moonlit gate?

Why do we stand
To watch so long the fall of moonlight on the sand?

What is it we cannot recall?

Tormented by the moon’s light
The earth turns maundering through the night.

How about a little Wordsworth today?

Surprised by joy—impatient as the wind
By William Wordsworth

Surprised by joy—impatient as the wind
I turned to share the transport—O! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?—That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

This may just be my favorite ESVM poem. It’s short, but a very powerful image.

Ebb
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.

This is the last of the poems I discovered when I visited the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe.

Grandmother
By Sherman Alexie

old crow of a woman in bonnet, sifting through the dump
salvaging those parts of the world
neither useless nor useful

she would be hours in the sweatlodge
come out naked and brilliant in the sun
steam rising off her body in winter
like slow explosion of horses

she braided my sister’s hair with hands that smelled of deep
roots buried in the earth
she told me old stories

how time never mattered
when she died
they gave me her clock

Avast, me hearties! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! In honor o’ the occasion, I scoured the boundin’ main (or world wide web to use more modern parlance) for a verse about the blackguards. Afore this day, ye’ve seen Pirate Story, The Swashbuckler’s Song, and Saint R.L.S.. Now read this - about the scallawag John Silver (if ye can read).

A Ballad of John Silver
By John Masefield

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the crossbones and the skull;
We’d a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We’d a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It’s a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.

Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter dashed with other peoples brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank.
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.

O! then it was (while standing by the taffrail on the poop)
We could hear the drowning folk lament the absent chicken coop;
Then, having washed the blood away, we’d little else to do
Than to dance a quiet hornpipe as the old salts taught us to.

O! the fiddle on the fo’c’sle, and the slapping naked soles,
And the genial “Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!”
With the silver seas around us and the pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking and his pipe-bowl glowing red.

Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
All have since been put a stop to by the naughty Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the islands of the Blest.

I need a little renewal today. I love this poem.

Renewal
By Vassar Miller

I, like a stone
kneel while the waters
of prayer wash over me.

Like a hare havened
in its own stillness
I freeze against Thy whiteness.

Once more myself,
I feed upon
Thy manna of the minutes.

I’ve just finished reading Ibid: A Life by Mark Dunn. I loved it! Today’s poem is a bit of frivolity from that book. It’s a parody of ESVM’s First Fig.

My Ice Cream Cone
IBID: A LIFE, CHAPTER 9
By Mark Dunn

My ice cream cone drips at both ends;
It will not last this heat;
But ah my tummy, and oh my tongue—
It tastes so good to eat!

Here’s a reader recommended poem.

A Woman’s Answer to a Man’s Question
By Mary T. Lathrap

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the hand above—
A woman’s heart, and a woman’s life
And a woman’s wonderful love?

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy,
Demanding what others have died to win,
With the reckless dash of a boy?

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Man-like you have questioned me;
Now stand at the bar of my woman’s soul
Until I shall question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart to be true as God’s stars,
And as pure as heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef;
I require a far better thing.
A seamstress you’re wanting for socks and shirts;
I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called home,
And a man that the maker, God,
Shall look upon as he did the first
And say, “It is very good.”

I am fair and young, but the rose will fade
From my soft, young cheek one day,
Will you love me then ‘mid the falling leaves,
As you did ‘mid the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep,
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that a man should be;
If you give all this, I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot do this—a laundress and cook
You can hire, with little to pay,
But a woman’s heart and a woman’s life
Are not to be won that way.

Since it’s rare that I post the PotD at night, I’ll post a night-time poem.

To the Evening Star
By William Blake

Thou fair-hair’d angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro’ the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover’d with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

Let’s go with a sonnet today.

Farewell, love, and all thy laws forever
By Sir Thomas Wyatt

Farewell, love, and all thy laws forever,
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore
To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavor.
In blind error when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse that pricketh aye so sore
Taught me in trifles that I set no store,
But scape forth, since liberty is lever.
Therefore, farewell, go trouble younger hearts,
And in me claim no more authority;
With idle youth go use thy property,
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts.
   For hitherto though I have lost my time,
   Me list no longer rotten boughs to climb.

I discovered this poem after being introduced to Wendell Berry by Ted Kooser. I really like it.

The Real Work
By Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Here’s another one that Ted Kooser posted in his column.

Of Some Renown
By Jean L. Connor

For some time now, I have
lived anonymously. No one
appears to think it odd.
They think the old are,
well, what they seem. Yet
see that great egret

at the marsh’s edge, solitary,
still? Mere pretense
that stillness. His silence is
a lie. In his own pond he is
of some renown, a stalker,
a catcher of fish. Watch him.

I thought this appropriate for Sunday.

Different Ways to Pray
By Naomi Shihab Nye

There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
Women dreamed wistfully of
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers, weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could
fuse them to the sky.

There were men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olive branches bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain,
because there was also happiness.

Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen
to ride buses across miles of sand.
When they arrived at Mecca
they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times,
they would bent to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.

While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing baskets of grapes.

These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into children’s dresses,
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.

There were those who didn’t care about praying.
The young ones. The ones who had been to America.
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
   Time? The old ones prayed for the young ones.
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.

And occasionally there would be one
who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example,
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,
and was famous for his laugh.

Larry McMurtry quoted this poem in Roads, which I just read, so I thought I’d share.

Wish for a Young Wife
By Theodore Roethke

My lizard, my lively writher,
May your limbs never wither,
May the eyes in your face
Survive the green ice
Of envy’s mean gaze;
May you live out your life
Without hate, without grief,
And your hair ever blaze,
In the sun, in the sun,
When I am undone,
When I am no one.

One has to wonder if Poe was ever happy…

To One in Paradise
By Edgar Allan Poe

Thou wast all that to me, love,
   For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
   A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
   And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
   Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
   A voice from out the Future cries,
“On! on!”—but o’er the Past
    (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! me
   The light of Life is o’er!
   No more—no more—no more—
(Such language holds the solemn sea
   To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
   Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
   And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
   And where thy footstep gleams—
In what ethereal dances,
   By what eternal streams.

I can’t remember where I read this poem, but I thought it was really cute so I saved it!

Washing the Dishes
By Christopher Morley

When we on simple rations sup
How easy is the washing up!
But heavy feeding complicates
The task by soiling many plates.

And though I grant that I have prayed
That we might find a serving-maid,
I’d scullion all my days I think,
To see Her smile across the sink!

I wash, she wipes. In water hot
I souse each pan and dish and pot;
While Taffy mutters, purrs, and begs,
And rubs himself against my legs.

The man who never in his life
Has washed the dishes with his wife
Or polished up the silver plate—
He still is largely celibate.

One warning: there is certain ware
That must be handled with all care:
The Lord Himself will give you up
If you should drop a willow cup!

Being sick (and teaching undergrads) makes me feel old.

Youth and Age
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Verse, a breeze ‘mid blossoms straying,
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee,—
Both were mine! Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
                                When I was young!
When I was young?—Ah, woeful When!
Ah! for the change ‘twixt Now and Then!
This breathing house not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O’er aery cliffs and glittering sands
How lightly then it flashed along:—
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of sail or oar,
That fear no spite of wind or tide!
Naught cared this body for wind or weather
When Youth and I lived in’t together.
Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like;
Friendship is a sheltering tree;
O the joys! that came down shower-like,
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty,
                                Ere I was old!
Ere I was old? Ah woeful Ere,
Which tells me, Youth’s no longer here!
O Youth! for years so many and sweet
‘Tis known that Thou and I were one,
I’ll think it but a fond conceit—
It cannot be that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet tolled:—
And thou wert aye a masker bold!
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Springtide blossoms on thy lips,
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are housemates still.

Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve!
Where no hope is, life’s a warning
That only serves to make us grieve
                                When we are old:
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest
That may not rudely be dismissed;
Yet hath out-stayed his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.

Sadness…

Hap
By Thomas Hardy

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan…
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

I’m so sick, and so not happy about it.

Crossing the Bar
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
   And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
   When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
   Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
   Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
   And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
   When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
   The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
   When I have crost the bar.

I’m always amazed that ESVM can cram so much anguish into so few words.

Sorrow
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
   Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,—
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
   Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
   I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
   Or what shoes I wear.

Persuasive, no?

To His Coy Mistress
By Andrew Marvell

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

   But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

   Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

This is gross, but I love it.

Sahra Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out
By Shel Silverstein

Sahra Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloopy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts…
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall…
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold french fries and rancid meat,
yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sahra Cynthia Stout said,
“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course, it was too late…
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sahra met an awful fate,
That I cannot right now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sahra Stout
And always take the garbage out!

Not exactly The Highwayman, but I like it.

The Elfin Artist
By Alfred Noyes

In a glade of an elfin forest
When Sussex was Eden-new,
I came on an elvish painter
And watched as his picture grew,
A harebell nodded beside him.
He dipt his brush in the dew.

And it might be the wild thyme round him
That shone in the dark strange ring;
But his brushes were bees’ antennae,
His knife was a wasp’s blue sting;
And his gorgeous exquisite palette
Was a butterfly’s fan-shaped wing.

And he mingled its powdery colours,
And painted the lights that pass,
On a delicate cobweb canvas
That gleamed like a magic glass,
And bloomed like a banner of elf-land,
Between two stalks of grass;

Till it shone like an angel’s feather
With sky-born opal and rose,
And gold from the foot of the rainbow,
And colours that no man knows;
And I laughed in the sweet May weather,
Because of the themes he chose.

For he painted the things that matter,
The tints that we all pass by,
Like the little blue wreaths of incense
That the wild thyme breathes to the sky;
Or the first white bud of the hawthorn,
And the light in a blackbird’s eye;

And the shadows on soft white cloud-peaks
That carolling skylarks throw,—
Dark dots on the slumbering splendours
That under the wild wings flow,
Wee shadows like violets trembling
On the unseen breasts of snow;

With petals too lovely for colour
That shake to the rapturous wings,
And grow as the bird draws near them,
And die as he mounts and sings,—
Ah, only those exquisite brushes
Could paint these marvellous things.