 | Forest Songs and Other Poems |  |
Here is a dell of Evening Primroses,
Which bow their heads, like weeping Magdalens,
Around the cross-foot of a carven Christ
Upon the edge of a wood. O loveliest flower,
Whose delicate petals, tinctured like yon sky,
Faint twilight lemon, rival thy sweet breath
In tender salutation of the sense!
Fosterer of gentle dreams! why look'st thou now
Like a soft incarnation of Love's soul,
Like Mercy pleading at the gate of Hell,
Like new-born Pity in the ugly world
Of human misery? Perhaps when dawned
The day of woman's hope, and women brought
Their children to their Saviour, those blest eyes
Pitied thy faint, sweet blossoms, as they fell
Withering from infant hands. Perhaps his tears
Were rained upon them ere he knelt by night,
Drinking, for man, the inevitable cup
Of Earth's despair in lone Gethsemane.
Which bow their heads, like weeping Magdalens,
Around the cross-foot of a carven Christ
Upon the edge of a wood. O loveliest flower,
Whose delicate petals, tinctured like yon sky,
Faint twilight lemon, rival thy sweet breath
In tender salutation of the sense!
Fosterer of gentle dreams! why look'st thou now
Like a soft incarnation of Love's soul,
Like Mercy pleading at the gate of Hell,
Like new-born Pity in the ugly world
Of human misery? Perhaps when dawned
The day of woman's hope, and women brought
Their children to their Saviour, those blest eyes
Pitied thy faint, sweet blossoms, as they fell
Withering from infant hands. Perhaps his tears
Were rained upon them ere he knelt by night,
Drinking, for man, the inevitable cup
Of Earth's despair in lone Gethsemane.
| Forest Songs and Other Poems | |