The Garden By Moonlight
A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish High as the tip buds of the golden glow Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting through the snowball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah,
Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know When I am gone.
Amy Lowell
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Opal
You are ice and fire, The touch of you burns my hands like snow You are cold and flame You are the crimson of amaryllis,
November
The vine leaves against the brick walls of my house, Are rusty and broken Dead leaves gather under the pine-trees, The brittle boughs of
Decade
When you came, you were like red wine and honey, And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness Now you are like morning bread, Smooth and pleasant
Climbing
High up in the apple tree climbing I go, With the sky above me, the earth below Each branch is the step of a wonderful stair Which leads to the town I see shining up there Climbing, climbing, higher and higher,
