MY LADY'S GARDEN
[From the same]
How does my Lady's garden grow?
How does my Lady's garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle-shells,
And pretty girls all in a row.
All fresh and fair, as the spring is fair,
And wholly unconscious they are so fair,
With eyes as deep as the wells of sleep,
And mouths as fragrant as sweet June air.
They all have crowns and all have wings,
Pale silver crowns and faint green wings,
And each has a wand within her hand,
And raiment about her that cleaves and clings.
But what have my Lady's girls to do?
What maiden toil or spinning to do?
They swing and sway the live-long day
While beams and dreams shift to and fro.
And are so still that one forgets,
So calm and restful, one forgets
To think it strange they never change,
Mistaking them for Margarets.
But when night comes and Earth is dumb,
When her face is veil'd, and her voice is dumb,
The pretty girls rouse from their summer drowse,
For the time of their magic toil has come.
They deck themselves in their bells and shells,
Their silver bells and their cockle-shells,
Like pilgrim elves, they deck themselves
And chaunting Runic hymns and spells,
They spread their faint green wings abroad,
Their wings and clinging robes abroad,
And upward through the pathless blue
They soar, like incense smoke, to God.