| |
| SOME space beyond the garden close | |
| I sauntered down the shadowed lawn; | |
| It was the hour when sluggards doze, | |
| The cheerful, zephyr-breathing dawn. | |
| The sun had not yet bathed his face, | 5 |
| Dark reddened from the night’s carouse, | |
| When, lo! in festive gypsy grace | |
| The hollyhocks stood nodding brows. | |
| |
| They shone full bold and debonair— | |
| That fine, trim band of frolic blades; | 10 |
| Their ruffles, pinked and purfled fair, | |
| Flamed with their riotous rainbow shades. | |
| They whispered light each comrade’s ears, | |
| They flirted with the wooing breeze; | |
| The grassy army’s stanchest spears | 15 |
| Rose merely to their stalwart knees! | |
| |
| My heart flushed warm with welcome cheer, | |
| They were so royal tall to see; | |
| No high-placed rivals need they fear, | |
| All flowers paid them fealty. | 20 |
| The haughtiest wild rose standing near | |
| Their girdles hardly might attain; | |
| They glowed, the courtiers of a year, | |
| Blithe pages in the Summer’s train! | |
| |
| Their radiance mocked the ruddy morn, | 25 |
| So jocund and so saucy free; | |
| Gay vagrants, Flora’s bravest born, | |
| They brightened all the emerald lea. | |
| I said: “Glad hearts, the crabbed frost | |
| Will soon your sun-dyed glories blight; | 30 |
| No evil eye your pride has crossed, | |
| You know not the designs of night. | |
| |
| “You have not thought that beauty fades; | |
| It is in vain you bloom so free; | |
| While you are flaunting in the glades | 35 |
| The gale may wreck your wanton glee.” | |
| They shook their silken frills in scorn, | |
| And to my warning seemed to say, | |
| “Dull rhymester, look! ’t is summer morn, | |
| And round us is the court of Day!” | 40 |
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