University of Virginia Library


43

THE LILY.

A poet loved a lily—and his eyes
Were set upon this flower from afar,
Just as a man may tremble towards a star,
Distance between them many miles of skies;
So, similarly, swayed the singer's sighs
This silver glitter, this white moon of plants,
And little rest unto himself he grants
(A somewhat passionate soul, not overwise)
Preparing a choice mossy bank whereon
His sonnets strown might make a velvet bed
For soft reclining of the lily's head,
He thought that there some time she should have shone,
But—poets pity him!—he found her gone
One day, brown gaping garden-mould instead.