YOU promised to send me some violets. Did you forget? White ones and blue ones from under the orchard hedge? Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a pledge Of our early love that hardly has opened yet. Here there's an almond tree -- you have never seen Such a one in the north -- it flowers on the street, and I stand Every day by the fence to look up for the flowers that expand At rest in the blue, and wonder at what they mean. Under the almond tree, the happy lands Provence, Japan, and Italy repose, And passing feet are chatter and clapping of those Who play around us, country girls clapping their hands. You, my love, the foremost, in a flowered gown, All your unbearable tenderness, you with the laughter Startled upon your eyes now so wide with hereafter, You with loose hands of abandonment hanging down. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 4 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING COWSLIPS AND LARKS by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES A HYMN; AFTER READING 'LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT' by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR THE INVITATION (TO TOM HUGHES) by CHARLES KINGSLEY SONNETS TO LAURA IN LIFE: 109 by PETRARCH WHAT THE BIRDS SAID by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |