University of Virginia Library


260

SONNET VI
NATURE'S MESSENGERS

Birds, flowers, and foliage of the summer days
And skies above us lordly and serene
And forests measureless and deep and green
And blue glad billows bounding through the bays
And hyacinths and honeysuckle-sprays
And roses that against the window lean
Take ye my song, and bear it to my queen:
Teach her to understand my love and lays!
As the past lengthens, far intenser grow
All noble love and passion. Love that fades
Was never love. Now the tall tree-tops throw
A longer shadow down the silent glades
But sunset soon will gild their colonnades:
Long love and passion must grow golden so.