Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LILY POND, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LILY POND, by                    
First Line: O lily-pond, thy early charm
Last Line: The changing permanent.
Subject(s): Flowers; Lilies


O lily-pond, thy early charm
The years have not effaced;
The wooing wild-wood's amorous arm
Has wandered round thy waist.

The treasure at thy rainbow's end
As day is nearing night
When sheen and shadow interblend,
Is memory's delight.

The palpitating butterfly
Still eavesdropping doth seem
As tree-tops whisper ceaselessly
The scandal of the stream.

Rome's cruelty of long ago
Is a forgiven crime.
This dragon-fly is working woe
Now, as in Nero's time.

It is not old, it is not new,
This conquest and defeat;—
The fish-hawk dreaming in the blue
And dying at my feet.

The guardian ferns' asexual brood
Is envious of the bloom
That overleans the luring flood
A-dallying with doom.

Like angels now ignoring time,
Or saints in mortal guise,
These lilies with their roots in slime
Are fragrant of the skies.

Fair fountain, 'neath thy leafy screen,
Nor luminous than glass,
While nimble seasons shift the scene
The sluggard ages pass.

Eternity engulfs them all,—
Event and incident.
The changeless is ephemeral,
The changing permanent.





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