| |
| DEAREST, these household cares remit; | |
| And while the sky is blue to-day, | |
| Here in this sunny shelter sit, | |
| To list the blackbird’s lay. | |
| |
| Is all so rare, romantic boy? | 5 |
| Is love so new and strange, that thou | |
| Must with that wild and shrilling joy | |
| Thrill the yet wintry bough? | |
| |
| Ah, now ’tis softer grown, more sweet,— | |
| ‘I come, I come, O love, O my love,’— | 10 |
| And he is fluttering to her feet | |
| In yonder purple grove. | |
| |
| Now hark! all summer swells the note | |
| And dreams of mellow ripeness make | |
| So ripe, so rich his warbling throat | 15 |
| For spouse and children’s sake. | |
| |
| Lover and prophet, see! the flower | |
| Of cherry is hardly white, and figs | |
| Are leafless, and thy nuptial bower | |
| A cage of rattling twigs. | 20 |
| |
| Yet faith is evidence, and hope | |
| Substance, and love sufficient fire; | |
| And Art in these finds ampler scope | |
| Than in fulfill’d desire. | |
| |
| So play thy Pan’s pipe, happy Faun, | 25 |
| Till some May night with moonshine pale, | |
| Thou pin’st, to hear by wood or lawn | |
| Apollo’s nightingale. | |
| |
