Someone, whose morals need mending, Sallies forth like the pillaging bee; He waylays the syrup ascending In anyone's saccharine tree; So lacking in conscience indeed, So reckless what life he makes bleed, That to get at the juices, his staple, The desirable sweets of the Spring, He poignards a shapely young maple, In my second-growth coppice -- its King. Assassin! secure in a crime never seen, The underwood dense, e'en his victim a screen, So be. But the murder will out, Never doubt, never doubt: In season the leafage will tell, Turning red ere the rime Yet, in turning, all beauty excell For a time, for a time! Small thanks to the scamp. But, in vision, to me A goddess mild pointing the glorified tree, "So they change who die early, some bards who life render: Keats, stabbed by the Muses, his garland's a splendor!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE by BEN JONSON THE SEARCH (1) by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IMITATIONS OF HORACE: ODE IV, 1 by ALEXANDER POPE IMPRESSIONS: LES SILHOUETTES by OSCAR WILDE EPIGRAM by DECIMUS MAGNUS AUSONIUS GREENES FUNERALLS: SONNET 4 by RICHARD BARNFIELD TO MR. BLEECKER, ON HIS PASSAGE TO NEW YORK by ANN ELIZA BLEECKER |