If the rose in meek duty May dedicate humbly To her grower the beauty Wherewith she is comely; If the mine to the miner The jewels that pined in it; Earth to diviner The springs he divined in it; To the grapes the wine-pitcher Their juice that was crushed in it; Viol to its witcher The music lay hushed in it; If the lips may pay Gladness In laughters she wakened, And the heart to its sadness Weeping unslakened; If the hid and sealed coffer Whose having not his is, To the loosers may proffer Their finding—here this is; Their lives if all livers To the Life of all living,— To you, O dear givers, I give your own giving!
DEDICATION OF "NEW POEMS"
To COVENTRY PATMORE
Lo, my book thinks to look Time's leaguer down Under the banner of your spread renown! Or, if these levies of impuissant rhyme Fall to the overthrow of assaulting Time, Yet this one page shall fend oblivious shame, Armed with your crested and prevailing Name.
Poems on Children
DAISY
Where the thistle lifts a purple crown Six foot out of the turf, And the harebell shakes on the windy hill— O the breath of the distant surf!—
The hills look over on the South, And southward dreams the sea; And, with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she.