 | Fantasy and Passion |  |
CLOVER.
Wild rustic cousins of the dainty rose,
Whose fragrant banquets lure the greedy bees,
Haytime's pink prophecies while young June goes,
How brightly spread your many-blossoming seas,
Rippled whichever way the warm winds please!
Whose fragrant banquets lure the greedy bees,
Haytime's pink prophecies while young June goes,
How brightly spread your many-blossoming seas,
Rippled whichever way the warm winds please!
Laughterful children feel your tufts of bloom
Brush their soft limbs, alert with merry leaps.
The iridescent humming-bird's low boom
With mellow music thrills your balmy deeps,
Where dew that was born yesterday still sleeps!
Brush their soft limbs, alert with merry leaps.
The iridescent humming-bird's low boom
With mellow music thrills your balmy deeps,
Where dew that was born yesterday still sleeps!
Here, too, the massive lazy cow, star-eyed,
Thrusts down her dark moist nose, and all day long,
By your delicious feast unsatisfied,
Crops with rough florid tongue your honeyed throng,
Lashing off flies with her tail's restless thong.
Thrusts down her dark moist nose, and all day long,
By your delicious feast unsatisfied,
Crops with rough florid tongue your honeyed throng,
Lashing off flies with her tail's restless thong.
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Or sometimes from your cool bournes, where it hid,
A butterfly soars fluttering, breeze-assailed,
Gay as those flowery gondolas that slid
Through sculptured Venice in old days, and trailed
Brocades and velvets where they softly sailed!
A butterfly soars fluttering, breeze-assailed,
Gay as those flowery gondolas that slid
Through sculptured Venice in old days, and trailed
Brocades and velvets where they softly sailed!
O clover, tended by the shining showers
Until your lavish color gladlier beams,
Or, through the yellow calms of morning hours,
Dappled with interchange of glooms and gleams,
Like vague recurrences of differing dreams,
Until your lavish color gladlier beams,
Or, through the yellow calms of morning hours,
Dappled with interchange of glooms and gleams,
Like vague recurrences of differing dreams,
Does Nature act in you her frankest part,
And are you thoughts that she would simply say,
Speaking them right from her full-throbbing heart?
Or were you made some more mysterious way,
From damask blushes of young morns in May?
And are you thoughts that she would simply say,
Speaking them right from her full-throbbing heart?
Or were you made some more mysterious way,
From damask blushes of young morns in May?
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