Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SCHERZO, by MATHILDE BLIND



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SCHERZO, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Oh, beloved, come and bring
Last Line: In the blossom of your face.
Alternate Author Name(s): Lake, Claude
Subject(s): Spring


OH, beloved, come and bring
All the flowery wealth of spring!
Though the leaf be in the sere,
Icy winter creeping near;
Though the trees like mourners all
Standing at a funeral,
Black against the pallid air
Toss their wild arms in despair,
With their bald heads sadly bowed
O'er dead summer in her shroud.
Yea, though golden days be o'er,
If you enter at my door,
Spring, dear spring, will come once more.
There will break upon the night
That glad flash of dewy light
Which, like young love in a pet,
Once with sunny tears would wet
Many a wild-wood violet;
And the hyacinth will arise
In the April of your eyes.
Blossoms of the apple tree?
Rarer blossoms bloom for me
In the cunning white and red,
Most felicitously wed,
On your cheek. And then your brow--
Can a snow-white cherry-bough
Match its bland, unsullied hue,
Where, like threads of silky blue,
Little veins show here and there
Through broad temples where your hair,
Clustering, hangs a tender brown
Softer than the fluffy down
Which before the leaf in March
Beards the lime tree and the larch?
Shall I grieve because the rose,
The red rose, no longer blows,
Since all roses you eclipse
With the roses of your lips?
And what matter, O my sweet,
Though the genial light and heat
Have departed for a while!
Only let me see you smile,
Let me see that dulcet curve
Like a dimpling wavelet swerve
Round the coral of your mouth,
And the North will change to South:
To the happy South, whose clear
Light o'er-brimming atmosphere,
Flowing in at every pore,
Sets life glowing to the core.
You are light and life in sooth,
Fair as was that Grecian youth
Who in her cold sphere above
Drove poor Dian mad with love--
When she saw him where he lay,
White and golden like a spray
Of tall jonquils whose intense
Sweetness faints upon the sense;
When she saw him swathed in light,
Couched on the a๋rial height
Of hoar Latmos, hushed and warm;
While, to shield him from all harm,
Like a woman's rounded arm,
A fresh creeper wildly fair
Twined around his throat and hair.
And the goddess clean forgot
Her fair fame without a blot,
And untarnished reputation,
Free from faintest imputation
Of such frailties as the fair
Dwellers in Elysian air
Find recorded to their shame,
Chronicled with date and name,
In the annals of the skies.
She forgot in her surprise,
When her empyrean eyes
Saw Endymion where he lay
Slumbering, and she cast away
Her immortal honour, clear
As her own unclouded sphere,
For the palpitating bliss
Of a surreptitious kiss.

Oh, beloved, come and bring
All the flowery wealth of spring--
All its blossoms, buds, and bells,
And wind-coaxing violet smells--
All its miracle of grace
In the blossom of your face.




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