GARDEN WALKS WITH THE POETS. Fancy. Keats. VER let the fancy roam, EV Pleasure never is at home; At a touch sweet pleasure melteth Then let winged Fancy wander Through the thought still spread beyond her. Open wide the mind's cage door, She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar. Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose, Cloys with tasting: what do then? Sit thee by the ingle, when The sear faggot blazes bright, When the soundless earth is muffled, And the caked snow is shuffled From the ploughboy's heavy shoon: To banish Even from her sky. Sit thee here, and send abroad, Fancy, high-commissioned;-send her! And thou shalt quaff it; thou shalt hear Distant harvest-carols clear; Rustle of the reaped corn; Sweet birds antheming the morn; And, in the same moment, hark! Shaded hyacinth, alway While the Autumn breezes sin Arcadian Hymn to Flora. R. H. Stoddard. COME, all ye virgins fair in kirtles white, Ye debonair and merry-hearted maids, Who have been out in troops before the light, Are glowing in the sky like kindling coals, The clouds are golden rimmed like burning scrolls, Jagged and fringed, and darkness melts away; The shrine is wreathed with leaves, the holy urns Brimming with morning dew are laid thereby, The censers swing, the odorous incense burns, And floats in misty volumes up the sky;Lay down your garlands and your baskets trim, Heaped up with floral offerings to the brim, And knit your little hands, and trip away With light and nimble feet To music soft and sweet, And celebrate the joyous break of day, And sing a hymn to Flora, Queen of May. |