Around their burrows on the fresh
And fragrant greensward, void of mesh.
The garden’s well-springs
Within the glades sprang fountains clear:
No frog or newt e’er came anear
Their waters, but ’neath cooling shade
They gently sourded. Mirth had made1440
Therefrom small channelled brooks to fling
Their waves with pleasant murmuring
In tiny tides. Bright green and lush,
Around these sparkling streams, did push
The sweetest grass. There might one lie
Beside one’s love, luxuriously
As though ’twere bed of down. The earth.
Made pregnant by the streams, gave birth
To thymy herbage and gay flowers,
And when drear winter frowns and lowers1450
In spots less genial, ever here
Things bud and burgeon through the year.
The violet, sweet of scent and hue,
The periwinkle’s star of blue,
The golden kingcups burnished bright,
Mingled with pink-rimmed daisies white,
And varied flowers, blue, gold, and red,
The alleys, lawns and groves o’erspread,
As they by Nature’s craft had been
Enamelled deftly on the green,1460
And all around where’er I went
Fresh blooms cast forth odorous[errata 1] scent.
Small need there is to fabulate
More fully of the fair estate
Of this most comely garden, lest
It wear your patience; nought expressed
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THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE.
