All silver-laced with web and crystal-studded, hangs
A golden lily cup, as airy as a dancing sprit.
The moon hath caught a fleeting cloud, and rests in her embrace.
The bumblefly still hovers o'er the clover flower,
And mimics all the zephyr's song. White butterflies,
Whose wings bespeak late wooing of the buttercup,
Wend home their way, the gold still clinging to their snowy gossamer.
E'en the toad, who old and moss-grown seems,
Is wabbled on a lilypad, and watches for the moon
To bid the cloud adieu and light him to his hunt
For fickle marsh flies who tease him throught the day.
Why every rose has loosed her petals,
And sends a pleading perfume to the moss
That creeps upon the maple's stalk, to tempt it hence
To bear a cooling draught. Round yonder trunk
The ivy clings and loves it into green.
The pansy dreams of coaxing goldenrod
To change her station, lest her modest flower
Be ever doomed to blossom 'neath the shadow of the wall.
And was not He who touched the pansy
With His regal robes and left their color there,
All-wise to leave her modesty as her greatest charm?
Here snowdrops blossom 'neath a fringe of tuft,
And fatty grubs find rest amid the mold.
All love, and Love himself, is here,
For every garden is fashioned by his hand.
Are then the garden's treasures more of worth
Than ugly toad or mold? Not so, for Love
May tint the zincy blue-gray murk
Of curdling fall to crimson, light-flashed summertide.
Ah, why then question Love, I prithee, friend?