INVOCATION
Oh, sweet Romance, let me know
If by any rhyme or reason
I can woo you, that you blow
In my garden every season!
Tell me what the soil you need,
What cool showers, what April weather;
If like any common seed
You put up a pale green feather?
Though a hundred years are vaunted
To perfect the aloe flower,
You, dear Romance, most undaunted,
Bloom a hundred times an hour.
And though bay-leaves crown the brave
While the myrtle's for the poet,
Plant immortal, I would crave
Seed of thee that I might sow it
Broadcast, round my wicket-gate,
Till—wide-spreading, multiplying,
Ingress to dull care denying—
I might sit the world defying,
Through my mood, my state belying,
Learning gayly how to wait.
If by any rhyme or reason
I can woo you, that you blow
In my garden every season!
Tell me what the soil you need,
What cool showers, what April weather;
If like any common seed
You put up a pale green feather?
Though a hundred years are vaunted
To perfect the aloe flower,
You, dear Romance, most undaunted,
Bloom a hundred times an hour.
And though bay-leaves crown the brave
While the myrtle's for the poet,
Plant immortal, I would crave
Seed of thee that I might sow it
Broadcast, round my wicket-gate,
Till—wide-spreading, multiplying,
Ingress to dull care denying—
I might sit the world defying,
Through my mood, my state belying,
Learning gayly how to wait.
Hark! through all the crystal pauses
Breaks the treble of thy leaves;
Silverest of silvery noises,
Tapping at my cottage eaves,
When the wandering winds are tired—
Till one more than half believes,
Sighs some weary-hearted Dryad
Whom the daily sun deceives.
Yet when morn is just beginning
To foretell its grand surprise,
Through thy boughs what chorus ringing,
Breaks the treble of thy leaves;
Silverest of silvery noises,
Tapping at my cottage eaves,
When the wandering winds are tired—
Till one more than half believes,
Sighs some weary-hearted Dryad
Whom the daily sun deceives.
Yet when morn is just beginning
To foretell its grand surprise,
Through thy boughs what chorus ringing,
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