Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 1.pdf/82

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Around their burrows on the fresh

And fragrant greensward, void of mesh.

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 made

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 lowers

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,

And all around where’er I went

Fresh blooms cast forth 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