IN this irised net I keep All the moth-winged winds of sleep, In this basket woven of willow I have silk-weed for your pillow. In this pouch of plaited reeds Stars I bear for silver beads. Choose my pippins for your money, Reddening pears as smooth as honey, Golden grapes and apricots, Herbs from well-grown garden plots; Basil, balm, and savoury, All sweet-smelling things there be, Fruits a many and flowers a few, Fiery dahlias drooped in dew, Wood-grown asters faint as smoke, Flame of maple, frond of oak. In this box of foreign woods I have delicate woven goods; Orient laces light as mist, Amber veils and amethyst, Ivory pins like hardened milk, Cloaks of silver-shining silk Wrought with strange embroideries Of peacock plumes and rose-berries. Buy a king's crown lost of old, Dark with sardius sunk in gold. Buy my gloves of spiders spun, Cool as water, warm as sun; Buy my shoon of yellow leathers Lined with fur and owlet feathers; Buy a chain of emerald stones Or scarlet seeds or cedar cones. All sweet, delicate things there be Honest folk may buy of me. Ere the earliest thrush has flown In my eyes the dawns are shown. On my lips the summer lingers, Rain has jewelled all my fingers; In my hand the crickets sing, And the moon's my golden ring. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TUOL SLENG: POL POT'S PRISON by KAREN SWENSON SONNET by DAVID HARTLEY COLERIDGE THE OLD ARM-CHAIR by ELIZA COOK THE MESSAGE, FR. THE FAIR MAID OF THE EXCHANGE by THOMAS HEYWOOD FOR DECORATION DAY: 1898-1899 by RUPERT HUGHES THE GHOSTS OF THE BUFFALOES by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY COMMEMORATION ODE READ AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL |