C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
“Come into the Garden, Maud”
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
C
For the black bat, night, has flown;
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play.”
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine,” so I swear to the rose,
“For ever and ever, mine.”
As the music clashed in the hall:
And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,—
Our wood, that is dearer than all;
That whenever a March wind sighs,
He sets the jewel-print of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea:
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,—
They sighed for the dawn and thee.
Come hither—the dances are done—
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls.
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”
And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”
The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”
And the lily whispers, “I wait.”
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthly bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.