 | Poems and Sonnets |  |
20
BROWN AND GOLD.
I
Sweet colours as I think! a golden bandMingled with black the Bride of Corinth wore,
That flashed upon her lover when the door
Gave sudden ingress to a snow-white hand,
And, sweet, for you a circlet I have planned
To mingle if it may be with the brown
Soft tresses, and I lay it gently down,
My “poems” namely, do you understand?
But I am too ambitious, such a gift
Is not for me, but rather if I may
Let me a second time my hand uplift
(For once before I touched your hair in play)
And, awkward as I am, I may make shift
To twine therein a gold thread that shall stay;
21
II
It was a peacock's feather that old timeBefore that, as a boy, tight in your hair
I twisted—nothing, lady, half as fair
I bring now, only a stray wreath of rhyme,
No peacock's feather spotted and sublime
With many eyes and Eastern colours rare,
Rather a brown pale plume a man might tear
From some street-sparrow in our colder clime;
But take it as it is, and it may be
That touched by you a wonder shall be done,
And as a black bird underneath the sun
Shining with many colours you may see,
So suddenly across my rhyme may run
Paradise-plumage, tropic brilliancy!
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