THE SUN-DIAL.
'T is an old dial, dark with many a stain;
In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom, Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain,
And white in winter like a marble tomb.
And round about its gray, time-eaten brow
Lean letters speak,—a worn and shattered row: I am a Shade; a Shadowe too art thou:
I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?
Here would the ring-doves linger, head to head;
And here the snail a silver course would run, Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread
His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun.
The tardy shade moved forward to the noon;
Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept, That swung a flower, and, smiling hummed a tune,—
Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt.
O'er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed;
About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone; And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed,
Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone.
She leaned upon the slab a little while,
Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone, Scribbled a something with a frolic smile,
Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone.
The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail;
There came a second lady to the place, Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale,—
An inner beauty shining from her face.
She, as if listless with a lonely love,
Straying among the alleys with a book,— Herrick or Herbert,—watched the circling dove,
And spied the tiny letter in the nook.