BOATMAN, have they crossed? 'Not all: The inn, there, hath an upper chamber, And a window in the wall Where the small white roses clamber. 'Many shelves run round the room; On a shelf, and no man near them, Two are talking low i' the gloom— From the trellis' foot may'st hear them.' Who are they? 'At dawn they came By the Passage, calling @3Over!@1 She the corpse of a comely dame, And the man, methinks, her lover.' Boatman, land and climb the stair: By the scented window-boxes Lower me that loving pair Here among the crimson phloxes. Boatmen, is this honey-dew Dripping from the window-boxes? Nay, I cannot tell its hue Here against the crimson phloxes. Take a guinea and a groat: One in ale shall keep thee merry; Let the other fee the boat Tiding these across the ferry. Take this purse: it shall persuade Him who digs i' th' acre yonder Them to bed with a cunning spade Cheek by jowl, no turtles fonder.— Cheek by jowl, and heart by heart, But a thought in either buried, That shall push them wide apart— Wide enough ere a third be ferried. So, between, my body I'll thrust, Laughing, straightening out my knees there, Either hand in a little dust Dabbling, at my cool dead ease there. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LONESOME CHILD by KATHERINE MANSFIELD EGERTON MANUSCRIPT: 104. JOPAS'S SONG by THOMAS WYATT THE COMING OF WISDOM WITH TIME by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS WHITE HEAD by ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN ON HOMER'S BIRTHPLACE by ANTIPATER OF SIDON |