Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SERENA, by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SERENA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In paraguayan forests there's a flower
Last Line: And thee than autumn roses!
Alternate Author Name(s): Duclaux, Madame Emile; Darmesteter, Mary; Robinson, A. Mary F.
Subject(s): Forests; Paraguay; Plants; Woods; Planting; Planters


(In the forests of Paraguay there grows a plant which the peasants
call Serena, quite unnoticeable and yet of a perfume so
attractive that
those who have plucked the flower by accident are said
henceforth to roam
the woods incessantly in quest of another blossom.)

IN Paraguayan forests there's a flower
The shepherds call Serena.
(Of all that blooms on herb or tree
Serena is the flower for me!)
The white magnolia on her brazen tower,
The lemon-fresh verbena
And roses where their purple clusters shower
Are nothing to Serena!

For where the wild liana shrouds the forest
In darkness, under cover,
Serena grows, so pure and small
You never notice her at all.
No herborist, no botanist, no florist,
Hath cared to con thee over
Thou little lonely blossom that abhorrest
The gazes of thy lover!

But here and there methinks a weary shepherd,
In quest of dewy blossom,
Stoops down to pluck the grass in flower
Beneath a white acacia-bower,
To cool some ancient scar of ape or leopard,
Some bite of snake or 'possum;
And lo! he starts and smiles, the happy shepherd,
Serena in his bosom!

And through his veins there steals a subtle wonder,
A magic melancholy
(So faint a sense, it cannot be
A hope nor yet a memory),
But something haunts the bough he slumbers under
That makes it rare and holy,
And lo! the shadows are a thing to ponder,
And every herb the Moly!...

Or else (who knows?) some lithe and amber maiden
Who steals to meet her lover
Goes singing with an idle art
To ease the gladness at her heart,
Along the sombre paths and cypress-shaden
Deep glades the roses cover,
And fills her arms with garlands heavy laden
The dewdrops sprinkle over.

But, in the crown she binds, her slender fingers
Have set the undreamed-of flower;
And from that moment she forgets
Her lover and her carcanets;
Nor any more she sings among the singers,
But wanders hour on hour
Deep in the wood and deeper, where there lingers
The secret and the power!...

Now he and she shall wander at the leading
Of one enchanted vision,
Recall the thing they have not seen,
Remember what hath never been,
And seek in vain the flower they plucked unheeding,
And scorn with mild derision
The roses where the happy bees are feeding
Or lily-beds Elysian.

O undiscovered blossom, slight and wan, set
So deep in forest closes,
Be mine, who ever, as thou know'st,
The least apparent loved the most:
Low music at the first faint-breathing onset,
The summer when it closes,
The silvery moonrise better than the sunset,
And thee than autumn roses!





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