FLORA AND PHYLLIS.
PART I.
No. 28.
In the spring-time, when the skies
Cast off winter's mourning,
And bright flowers of every hue
Earth's lap are adorning,
At the hour when Lucifer
Gives the stars their warning,
Phyllis woke, and Flora too,
In the early morning.
Both the girls were fain to go
Forth in sunny weather,
For love-laden bosoms throw
Sleep off like a feather;
Then with measured steps and slow
To the fields together
Went they, seeking pastime new
'Mid the flowers and heather.
Both were virgins, both, I ween,
Were by birth princesses;
Phyllis let her locks flow free,
Flora trained her tresses.
Not like girls they went, but like
Heavenly holinesses;
And their faces shone like dawn
'Neath the day's caresses.
Equal beauty, equal birth,
These fair maidens mated;
Youthful were the years of both,
And their minds elated;
Yet they were a pair unpaired,
Mates by strife unmated;
For one loved a clerk, and one
For a knight was fated.
Naught there was of difference
'Twixt them to the seeing,
All alike, within without,
Seemed in them agreeing;
With one garb, one cast of mind,
And one mode of being,
Only that they could not love
Save with disagreeing.
In the tree-tops overhead
A spring breeze was blowing,
And the meadow lawns around
With green grass were growing;
Through the grass a rivulet
From the hill was flowing,
Lively, with a pleasant sound
Garrulously going.
That the girls might suffer less
From the noon resplendent,
Near the stream a spreading pine
Rose with stem ascendant;
Crowned with boughs and leaves aloft,
O'er the fields impendent;
From all heat on every hand
Airily defendent.