By Severn Sea and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

HESPERIDES

ALL AMIDST THE GARDENS FAIR
OF HESPERUS AND HIS DAUGHTERS THREE
THAT SING ABOUT THE GOLDEN TREE

Mistress Rachel, Mistress Ruth,
Dancing down the ways of youth
By the dancing rills of truth,
Fairy music lead your measure,
Bring you to the hidden treasure
And the oracles of sooth,
Bid all sprites of evil vanish,
Gnome and Kobold ban and banish,
Charm each dragon head uncouth!

So they danced among their roses,
Whom the Grecian tale discloses,
In the golden-fruited garden
Where the watchful snake was warden,
Daughters of the sunset West,
Magic maidens ever lilting,

Magic bowers never wilting,
While the sunset flashed and bickered
And the sparkling ocean flickered
And the silver Star of Even
Hung above the crimson heaven,
And the whirling world had rest.

Till there came the hero presence
Breaking on their charmèd pleasaunce
From the lands of work and pain,
Quelled the fierce unsleeping warden,
Plucked the fruitage of the garden
For a gift at Wisdom's fane;
For a gift and for a token
That the lulling spell was broken,
All the careless years completed,
All their golden nonage fleeted,
And the star that lit to dreaming
Must for busy morn be beaming,
And the world must whirl again.

Dancing down the ways of youth
By the dancing rills of truth,
Fairy music lead your measure,

Bring you to the hidden treasure
And the oracles of sooth,
Bid all sprites of evil vanish,
Gnome and Kobold ban and banish,
Charm each dragon head uncouth;
Mistress Rachel, Mistress Ruth!

Christmas, 1895.