Hawthorn and Lavender | Page 3

purpose of May.
So take your pleasure,
And in full measure
Use of your treasure,
When birds sing best!
For when heaven's bluest,
And earth feels

newest,
And love longs truest,
And takes not rest:
When winds blow cleanest,
And seas roll
sheenest,
And lawns lie greenest:
Then, night and day,
Dear life counts dearest,
And God walks
nearest
To them that praise Him, praising His May.
XIII
_I talked one midnight with the jolly ghost_
_Of a gray ancestor_,
_TOM HEYWOOD hight_;
_And_, '_Here's_,' _says he_, _his old
heart liquor-lifted_-- '_Here's how we did when GLORIANA shone_:'
All in a garden green
Thrushes were singing;
Red rose and white between,
Lilies were springing;
It was the merry May;
Yet sang my Lady:--
'Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay!
I am not ready.'
Then to a pleasant shade
I did invite her:
All things a concert made,
For to delight her;
Under, the grass was gay;
Yet sang my Lady:--
'Nay, Sweet, now nay, now nay!
I am not ready.'
XIV
Why do you linger and loiter, O most sweet?
Why do you falter and

delay,
Now that the insolent, high-blooded May
Comes greeting
and to greet?
Comes with her instant summonings to stray
Down
the green, antient way--
The leafy, still, rose-haunted, eye-proof
street!--
Where true lovers each other may entreat,
Ere the gold hair
turn gray?
Entreat, and fleet
Life gaudily, and so play out their play,

Even with the triumphing May--
The young-eyed, smiling,
irresistible May!
Why do you loiter and linger, O most dear?
Why do you dream and
palter and stay,
When every dawn, that rushes up the bay,
Brings
nearer, and more near,
The Terror, the Discomforter, whose prey,

Beloved, we must be? Nor prayer, nor tear,
Lets his arraignment; but
we disappear,
What time the gold turns gray,
Into the sheer,
Blind
gulfs unglutted of mere Yesterday,
With the unlingering May--
The
good, fulfilling, irresponsible May!
XV
_Come where my Lady lies_,
_Sleeping down the golden hours_!

_Cover her with flowers_.
Bluebells from the clearings,
Flag-flowers from the rills,
Wildings from the lush hedgerows,
Delicate daffodils,
Sweetlings from the formal plots,
Bloomkins from the bowers--
Heap them round her where she sleeps,
_Cover her with flowers_!
Sweet-pea and pansy,
Red hawthorn and white;
Gilliflowers--like praising souls;
Lilies--lamps of light:
Nurselings of what happy winds,

Suns, and stars, and showers!
Joylets good to see and smell--
_Cover her with flowers_!
Like to sky-born shadows
Mirrored on a stream,
Let their odours meet and mix
And waver through her dream!
Last, the crowded sweetness
Slumber overpowers,
And she feels the lips she loves
_Craving through the flowers_!
XVI
The west a glory of green and red and gold,
The magical drifts to
north and eastward rolled,
The shining sands, the still, transfigured
sea,
The wind so light it scarce begins to be,
As these long days
unfold a flower, unfold
Life's rose in me.
Life's rose--life's rose! Red at my heart it glows--
Glows and is glad,
as in some quiet close
The sun's spoiled darlings their gay life renew!

Only, the clement rain, the mothering dew,
Daytide and night, all
things that make the rose,
Are you, dear--you!
XVII
Look down, dear eyes, look down,
Lest you betray her gladness.
Dear brows, do naught but frown,
Lest men miscall my madness.

Come not, dear hands, so near,
Lest all besides come nearer.
Dear heart, hold me less dear,
Lest time hold nothing dearer.
Keep me, dear lips, O, keep
The great last word unspoken,
Lest other eyes go weep,
And other lives lie broken!
XVIII
Poplar and lime and chestnut
Meet in a living screen;
And there the winds and the sunbeams keep
A revel of gold and green.
O, the green dreams and the golden,
The golden thoughts and green,
This green and golden end of May
My lover and me between!
XIX
Hither, this solemn eventide,
All flushed and mystical and blue,

When the late bird sings
And sweet-breathed garden-ghosts walk
sudden and wide,
Hesper, that bringeth all good things,
Brings me a
dream of you.
And in my heart, dear heart, it comes and goes,
Even
as the south wind lingers and falls and blows,
Even as the south wind
sighs and tarries and streams,
Among the living leaves about and
round;
With a still, soothing sound,
As of a multitude of dreams

Of love, and the longing of love, and love's delight,
Thronging, ten
thousand deep,
Into the uncreating Night,
With semblances and

shadows to fulfil,
Amaze, and thrill
The strange, dispeopled
silences of Sleep.
XX
After the grim daylight,
Night--
Night and the stars and the sea!

Only the sea, and the stars
And the star-shown sails and spars--

Naught else in the night for me!
Over the northern height,
Light--
Light and the dawn of a day

With nothing for me but a breast
Laboured with love's unrest,
And
the irk of an idle May!
XXI
Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is
the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the
Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the
Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the
Grave fall in.
For the