Читать книгу The Blue Poetry Book - Lang Andrew, May Kendall - Страница 15

With sweetest milk and sugar first

I it at my own fingers nursed;

And as it grew, so every day

It wax’d more white and sweet than they.

It had so sweet a breath! and oft

I blush’d to see its foot more soft

And white, shall I say, than my hand?

Nay, any lady’s of the land!

It is a wond’rous thing how fleet

’Twas on those little silver feet:

With what a pretty skipping grace

It oft would challenge me the race;

And when ’t had left me far away

’Twould stay, and run again, and stay,

For it was nimbler much than hinds;

And trod as if on the four winds.

I have a garden of my own,

But so with roses overgrown,

And lilies, that you would it guess

To be a little wilderness,

And all the spring-time of the year

It only loved to be there.

Among the beds of lilies I

Have sought it oft, where it should lie;

Yet could not, till itself would rise,

Find it, although before mine eyes.

For, in the flaxen lilies’ shade

It like a bank of lilies laid.

Upon the roses it would feed,

Until its lips e’en seem’d to bleed;

And then to me ’twould boldly trip,

And print those roses on my lip.

But all its chief delight was still

On roses thus itself to fill;

And its pure virgin limbs to fold

In whitest sheets of lilies cold.

Had it lived long, it would have been

Lilies without, roses within.