 | A Flight of Fancies |  |
22
A GREAT COMPLIMENT
Forasmuch as you have chosen to collectFrom the orchard and the garden what you needed,
When you put your heads together to erect
In the double-may a cottage, while I weeded,
And pretended not to know of lovers fitting
Moss to horsehair, by the genius of the bill,
As exponents of the fine ancestral knitting
That so delicately baffles human skill;
Forasmuch as you have flattered me by counting
On my garden as a honeymoony place,
And have trusted me with treasure slowly mounting
To the total that is proper to your race,
I confess that (though my life is full of labours
Such as worry him whose loaf is bought by words)
I am puzzled how to thank my new-come neighbours
23
I shall never, if I live to grow white-headed
And a fidget when the grass is damp with dew,
See a home of love more wisely built and steadied,
Or a dearer pair of chaffinches than you.
| A Flight of Fancies | |