THE five-pointed crude pink tinsel star Laughed loudly at King Cophetua; Across the plain that is black as mind And limitless, it laughed unkind To see him whitened like a clown With the moon's flour, come in a golden crown. The moon shone softer than a peach Upon the round leaves in its reach; The dark air sparkled like a sea -- The beggar-maid leaned out through a tree And sighed (that pink flower-spike full of honey), "Oh, for Love ragged as Time, with no money!" Then through the black night the gardener's boy As sunburnt as hay, came whispering, "Troy Long ago was as sweet as the honey-chimes In the flower-bells jangling into rhymes, And, oh, my heart's sweet as a honey-hive Because of a wandering maid, and I live But to tend the pale flower-bells of the skies That shall drop down their dew on her sleeping eyes." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IMMORTALITY by EMILY DICKINSON THE ANNOYER by NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS SONG OF THE SPANISH JEWS by GRACE AGUILAR BALLDE DES PENDUS by THEODORE FAULLAIN DE BANVILLE SHUT OUT by KATHARINE LEE BATES LOLA WEARS LACE by HELEN BIRCH-BARTLETT |