Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1063

 SIR EDMUND GOSSE

Ringstraked and pied, the great soft moths came flying,

And flapping with their mad wings, fann'd The flickering flame, ascending, falling, dying.

��Behind the thorny pink

Close wall of blossom'd may, I gazed thro' one green chink And saw no more than thousands may,

Saw sweetness, tender and gay, Saw full rose lips as rounded as the cherry,

Saw braided locks more dark than bay, And flashing eyes decorous, pure, and merry.

With food for furry friends

She pass'd, her lamp and she, Till eaves and gable-ends Hid all that saffron sheen from me:

Around my rosy tree Once more the silver-starry night was shining,

With depths of heaven, dewy and free, And crystals of a carven moon declining.

Alas' for him who dwells

In frigid air of thought, When warmer light dispels The frozen calm his spirit sought;

By life too lately taught He sees the ecstatic Human from him stealing;

Reels from the joy experience brought, And dares not clutch what Love was half revealing.

�� �