Читать книгу Poems New and Old - John Freeman - Страница 6

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I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you

Their smell and hue,

And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare

Her flowers starry fair;

Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn

Their sweetness to keep

Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born

Between midnight and midnight deep.

And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white

In its own green light,

Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadowsweet

Lifting at your feet,

And ivy blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take

The loveliest—

The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake

Though the winds are at rest.

"For me?" you will ask. "Yes! surely they wave for you

Their smell and hue,

And you away all that is rare were so much less

By your missed happiness."

Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn

Their whole sweet would keep

Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn

Had awaked from sleep.