The Maids Thought

Why listen, even the water is sobbing for something.

The west wind is dead, the

Forget to hate the cliff, in the upland

Whole hillsides burst

With golden broom.

Dear how it rained last month,

And every pool was

With sulphury pollen dust of the wakening pines.

Now tall and slender

The stalks of purple iris blaze by the brooks,

The pencilled ones on the hill;

This deerweed shivers with gold, the white

Blow out their silky bubbles,

But in the next glen bronze-bells nod, the

Scalded by some hot

Can hardly set their pointed hoofs to

Love but they crush a flower;

Shells pair on the rock, birds mate, the moths fly double.

O it Is time for us

Mouth kindling mouth to entangle our maiden

To make that burning flower.