Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/229

      'Twas a bower for garden fitter,
      Than for any woodland wide!
      Though a fresh and dewy glitter
      Struck it through, from side to side,
Shaped and shaven was the freshness, as by garden-cunning plied.

      Oh, a lady might have come there,
      Hooded fairly like her hawk,
      With a book or lute in summer,
      And a hope of sweeter talk,—
Listening less to her own music, than for footsteps on the walk.

      But that bower appeared a marvel
      In the wildness of the place!
      With such seeming art and travail,
      Finely fixed and fitted was
Leaf to leaf, the dark-green ivy, to the summit from the base.

      And the ivy, veined and glossy,
      Was inwrought with eglantine;
      And the wild hop fibred closely,
      And the large-leaved columbine,
Arch of door and window-mullion, did right sylvanly entwine.

      Bose-trees, either side the door, were
      Growing lithe and growing tall;
      Each one set a summer warder
      For the keeping of the hall,—
With a red rose, and a white rose, leaning, nodding at the wall.

      As I entered—mosses hushing
      Stole all noises from my foot;
      And a round elastic cushion,
      Clasped within the linden's root,
Took me in a chair of silence, very rare and absolute.