I'll have the primrose grow in grass, Held up in hands of soft, green moss. If in twelve months no green moss grows On that dark stone, then out it goes. Above my window-top there'll be A creeper that grows wild and free; Until so many leaves have grown, They'll make a curtain half-way down. In that round corner place shall grow A holly tree, for Winter's snow; There shall the Robin Redbreast sing, Till snow -- that feathers everything That has no life-blood pulsing through -- Would feather his warm feathers too! This lime, now old, I'll slowly kill With creeper-sucker leaves; until The leaves that grow around its bole, Makes it a child all beautiful -- When with her naked knee that's brown, She stands with half her stocking down. A lovelier death no man shall see -- Than seen in my half-strangled tree. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT DOVER CLIFFS, JULY 20, 1787 by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES WHY I LOVE HER by ALEXANDER BROME MEETING AT NIGHT by ROBERT BROWNING THE CUPBOARD by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE VANITAS VANITATUM, FR. THE DEVIL'S CASE LAW by JOHN WEBSTER A SATIRE [OR, SATYR] AGAINST MANKIND by JOHN WILMOT |