 | The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich |  |
388
VIII
AT BAY RIDGE, LONG ISLAND
Pleasant it is to lie amid the grassUnder these shady locusts, half the day,
Watching the ships reflected on the Bay,
Topmast and shroud, as in a wizard's glass;
To note the swift and meagre swallow pass,
Brushing the dewdrops from the lilac spray;
Or else to sit and while the noon away
With some old love-tale; or to muse, alas!
On Dante in his exile, sorrow-worn;
On Milton, blind, with inward-seeing eyes
That made their own deep midnight and rich morn;
To think that now, beneath the Italian skies,
In such clear air as this, by Tiber's wave,
Daisies are trembling over Keats's grave.
| The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich | |