II
Chameleons haunt the sunlight there,
Where lemons firmament with blooms the way:
The white rose gives its soul up and the air
Ensnares it in a ray.
Great lilies open mouths of musk
And stun the wind with scent; the loaded light
Swoons with japonicas; and, tusk on tusk,
Magnolias bud in sight.
The red-bird sings, “Oh, haste, haste, haste!
Sweetheart! no longer tarry!
Go, clasp her sweetly by the waist!
And ask her, like a poppy faced,
Sweetheart! if she will marry.
Oh, haste, haste, haste!”
III
There the verandah, spilled and spun
With deep bignonia, foaming all its frame
With fiery blooms, seems pouring for the sun
A cataract of flame.
The oleander hedges soak
The dusk with fragrance: and the gray moss sweeps
Its streamers from the cypress and live-oak
Where blue the ocean sleeps.
“Oh, love, love, love!” the wood-dove coos;
“Oh, love, love, love, for ever!
They who the crimson rose refuse,
All other flowers, too, may lose—
So choose thou now or never!
Oh, love, love, love!”
LONG AGO
When the winter wind comes sighing
Like a ghost, and softly trying
Door and window, and the dying
Light upon the hearth burns low;
How his heart, that’s old, remembers
Love that faded as the embers
Into ashes, or December’s
Vanished snow.