Motley, and other poems - Walter De la Mare

Roses are sweet to smell and see,
And lilies on the stem;
But rarer, stranger buds there be,
And she was like to them.

The little moon that April brings,
More lovely shade than light,
That, setting, silvers lonely hills
Upon the verge of night—

Close to the world of my poor heart
So stole she, still and clear;
Now that she's gone, O dark, and dark,
The solitude—the fear.

Never, no never, listen too long,
To the chattering wind in the willows, the night
bird's song.

'Tis sad in sooth to lie under the grass,
But none too gladsome to wake and grow cold
where life's shadows pass.

Dumb the old Toll-Woman squats,
And, for every green copper battered and worn,
doles out Nevers and Nots.

I know a Blind Man, too,
Who with a sharp ear listens and listens the
whole world through.

Oh, sit we snug to our feast.
With platter and finger and spoon—and good
victuals at least.