Someone, whose morals need mending, Sallies forth like the pillaging bee; He waylays the syrup ascending In anyone's saccharine tree; So lacking in conscience indeed, So reckless what life he makes bleed, That to get at the juices, his staple, The desirable sweets of the Spring, He poignards a shapely young maple, In my second-growth coppice -- its King. Assassin! secure in a crime never seen, The underwood dense, e'en his victim a screen, So be. But the murder will out, Never doubt, never doubt: In season the leafage will tell, Turning red ere the rime Yet, in turning, all beauty excell For a time, for a time! Small thanks to the scamp. But, in vision, to me A goddess mild pointing the glorified tree, "So they change who die early, some bards who life render: Keats, stabbed by the Muses, his garland's a splendor!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NIGHT AND DAY: 2 by ISAAC ROSENBERG A POET'S FANCIES: 8. THE MODERN POET; A SONG OF DERIVATIONS by ALICE MEYNELL LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM by THOMAS MOORE BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE by EZRA POUND KEATS (1) by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE THE LION'S SKELETON by CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER THE MAYFLOWERS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE MORAL FABLES: THE FOX, THE WOLF, AND THE CADGER by AESOP |