C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Norman Gale (1862–1942)

(With Pupils)

BOOKS and heat, the dullard mind

Reeling under Cicero;

London landscape, roof and blind

Blacker e’en than London snow;

Pupils coming all day long,

All my pause the thought that she,

She I love, my joy and song,

Dreams by day and night of me.

Ah, might I gather a rose with its dew

For her heart on this bright June morning!

Doric of the roughest mold

Planned to make a Master sour;

Thirty lines of Virgil’s gold

Slowly melting in an hour!

Ovid’s ingots and the gems

Horace polished for our eyes

In a maze of roots and stems,

Hurdy-gurdies, cabmen’s cries!

Ah, might I gather a rose in its dew

For her heart on this bright June morning!

Envious twigs in leafy nook

Catch my love’s long tresses fair,

E’en as Grecian branches shook

Down Diana’s crown of hair!

While on Cæsar’s bridge I stand,

Fancy brings (but could they speak!)

Laura’s lips, and, faintly tanned,

Peachy glimpses of her cheek!

Ah, might I gather a rose in its dew

For her heart on this bright June morning!