Roses glorious and lush,
Rich in tender-tinted dyes,
Like a gay, tempestuous rush
Of unnumbered butterflies
Lighting on each bending bush.
Here the fire-bush and the box,
And the wayward violets;
Clumps of star-enameled phlox,
And the myriad flowery jets
Of the twilight four-o'clocks.
Ah, the beauty of the place
When the June made one great rose
Full of musk and mellow grace,
In the garden's humming close,
Of her comely mother face!
Bubble-like the hollyhocks
Budded, burst and flaunted wide
Gypsy beauty from their stocks.
Morning-glories, bubble-dyed,
Swung in honey-hearted flocks.
Tawny tiger-lilies flung
Doublets slashed with crimson on;
Graceful slave-girls fair and young,
Like Circassians, in the sun
Alabaster lilies swung.
Ah, the droning of the bee
In his dusty pantaloons
Tumbling in the fleurs-de-lis;
In the drowsy afternoons
Dreaming in the pink sweet-pea.
Ah, the moaning wild-wood dove
With its throat of amethyst
Ruffled like a shining cove,
Which a wind to pearl hath kissed,
Moaning, moaning of its love.
And the insects' gossip thin,
From the summer hotness hid,
In the leafy shadows green,
Then at eve the katydid
With its hard, unvaried din.
Often from the whispering hills
Lorn within the golden dusk,—
Gold with gold of daffodils,—
Thrilled into the garden's musk
The wild wail of whippoorwills.
From the purple tangled trees,
Like the white, full heart of night,
Solemn with majestic peace,
Swam the big moon veined with light,
Like some gorgeous golden fleece.