These famous waters smell like -- well, Those Saratoga waters may Taste just a little of the day Of judgment; and the sulphur smell Suggests, along with other things, A climate rather warm for springs. But restful as a twilight song, The land where every lover hath A spring, and every spring a path To lead love pleasantly along. Oh, there be waters, not of springs -- The waters wise King David sings. Sweet is the bread that lovers eat In secret, sang on harp of gold, Jerusalem's high king of old. "The stolen waters they are sweet!" Oh, dear, delicious piracies Of kisses upon love's high seas! The old traditions of our race Repeat for aye and still repeat; The stolen waters still are sweet As when King David sat in place, All purple robed and crowned in gold, And sang his holy psalms of old. Oh, to escape the searching sun; To seek these waters over sweet; To see her dip her dimpled feet Where these delicious waters run -- To dip her feet, nor slip nor fall, Nor stain her garment's hem at all: Nor soil the whiteness of her feet, Nor stain her whitest garment's hem -- Oh, singer of Jerusalem, You sang so sweet, so wisely sweet! Shake hands! shake hands! I guess you knew For all your psalms, a thing or two. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOCKLESS DOOR by ROBERT FROST AMORETTI: 75 by EDMUND SPENSER FROM HIDDEN SOURCE by JEAN ANDERSON I'M SADDEST WHEN I SING by THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: A DREAM OF GOOD by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |