XIX

Because I adore you

And fall

On the knees of my spirit before you —

After all,

You need not insult,

My king,

With neglect, though your spirit exult

In the spring,

Even me, though not worth,

God knows,

One word of you sent me in mirth,

Or one rose

Out of all in your garden

That grow

Where the frost and the wind never harden

Flakes of snow,

Nor ever is rain

At all,

But the roses rejoice to remain

Fair and tall —

The roses of love,

More sweet

Than blossoms that rain from above

Round our feet,

When under high bowers

We pass,

Where the west wind freckles with flowers

All the grass.

But a child's thoughts bear

More bright

Sweet visions by day, and more fair

Dreams by night,

Than summer's whole treasure

Can be:

What am I that his thought should take pleasure,

Then, in me?

I am only my love's

True lover,

With a nestful of songs, like doves

Under cover,

That I bring in my cap

Fresh caught,

To be laid on my small king's lap —

Worth just nought.

Yet it haply may hap

That he,

When the mirth in his veins is as sap

In a tree,

Will remember me too

Some day

Ere the transit be thoroughly through

Of this May —

Or perchance, if such grace

May be,

Some night when I dream of his face.

Dream of me.

Or if this be too high

A hope

For me to prefigure in my

Horoscope,

He may dream of the place

Where we

Basked once in the light of his face,

Who now see

Nought brighter, not one

Thing bright,

Than the stars and the moon and the sun,

Day nor night.