As in the gardens, all through May, the Rose, Lovely, and young, and rich apparelled, Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red, When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows; Graces and Loves within her breast repose, The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed, Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead The languid flower and the loose leaves unclose,—

As

So this, the perfect beauty of our days, When heaven and earth were vocal of her praise, The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes: And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom, That, dead as living, Rose may be with roses.

p. 109THE POET’S APOLOGY

p. 109

No, the Muse has gone away, Does not haunt me much to-day. Everything she had to say Has been said! ’Twas not much at any time She could hitch into a rhyme, Never was the Muse sublime, Who has fled!

No

Any one who takes her in May observe she’s rather thin; Little more than bone and skin Is the Muse; Scanty sacrifice she won When her very best she’d done, And at her they poked their fun, In Reviews.

p. 110‘Rhymes,’ in truth, ‘are stubborn things.’ And to Rhyme she clung, and clings, But whatever song she sings Scarcely sells. If her tone be grave, they say ‘Give us something rather gay.’ If she’s skittish, then they pray   ‘Something else!’

p. 110

Much she loved, for wading shod, To go forth with line and rod, Loved the heather, and the sod,   Loved to rest On the crystal river’s brim Where she saw the fishes swim, And she heard the thrushes’ hymn, By the Test!

She, whatever way she went, Friendly was and innocent, Little need the Bard repent Of her lay. p. 111Of the babble and the rhyme, And the imitative chime That amused him on a time,—   Now he’s grey.

p. 111

p. 113NOTES

p. 113

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