Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/223

 Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly

Across our path at evening, and the suns

Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see

Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,

(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)

Burst from its sheathèd emerald and disclose

The little quivering disk of golden fire

Which the bees know so well, for with it come

Pale boy's-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,

While close behind the laughing younker scares

With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,

And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,

And on the grass the creamy blossom falls

In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons

Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,

That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons

With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine 209