Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/198

THE CARIB SEA Fancy guesses

These must be the court-princesses:

Others are in durance pent,

Changed to orchids for their tricks,—

Wantons they, who must remain

All day long in beauteous pain

Till stern Oberon relent,

Pardon grant, and seal affix.

Each repineth

Thus until the monarch dineth

And, content, doth loose her chain.

VIII

Would you had the fine, fine ear

The dragonfly's recall to hear,—

Tiny words

Of the vibrant humming-birds

That, where bloom convolvuli,

Round the dew-cups whir and hover,

Thrusting each, hour after hour,

His keen bill to heart o' the flower,

As some mounted knight may ply

His long lance, an eager lover,

Through deep sedges,

And athrough the coppice edges,

Fain to reach his lady's bower.

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