BENEATH that hawthorn shade the grass will hardly grow, So many babes have played and kept the bare clay so, So many loves delayed in the moonlight's ebb and flow -- Daisy-chains and May beginnings, Fail not till I pass below. The roots of this same thorn are polished like a stool, Each grey and goblin horn grown craftwise beautiful, And sometimes to adorn is left a tuft of wool -- I envy still the merry runnings Of those that pass that way from school. The moonlight through the may and the whisper fluttering there, Like angels on their way to the lamp of pain and prayer, Gleams and ripplings play, and we lay our forehead bare, For here the coolest, cleverest cunnings Know the unknown's winged air. Come, little tiny child, here's white violets for thee, Come, smiling beauty wild, love's the dryad of this tree, And thou baptized mild, this thorny chapel see, And may I for all my sinnings Sit in this same sanctuary. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ISOLATION by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DOMESDAY BOOK: CONSIDER FREELAND by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS; OR, THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA by FRANCIS HASTINGS CHARLES DOYLE BYRON by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE ROSE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH EN TOUR; A SONG SEQUENCE: 2. TREASURE by ALBERTA BANCROFT A QUARTET ('THE MIKADO' AT CAMBRIDGE) by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |