GIVE o’er the strife! The poet cries
The maiden mercy, in whose eyes
He sees the light of paradise.
Beyond the coppice, at the edge
Where ends the poet’s Privilege
Along the lake, in June one day
I sat to meditate this lay;
Wherein, forgetting Love, I planned
To sing the sea and sky and land.
And first, the picture – all the scene
A dark uninterrupted green.
No flower uplifted from the floor
Breaks from the forest to the shore.
No daffodil that nods along
The bloss’my banks of English song;
Myrtles nor roses, that entwine
In many a fragrant Attic line,
Here spring, to aid while I rehearse
The homely numbers of my verse.
Poppy nor violet is here,
Where fern, with cornel and severe
Bay, and the low-set laurel shine
Beneath a sombre front of pine.
Here as I lay among the brakes
I watched the bright, green forest-snakes,
The wasp go over, and the toad
Sit undecided of his road;
And sudden, from a tufted top,
The gray, silk-cinctured spider drop.
Out of the high, benignant blue
The earth a golden opiate drew.
Low-lying, level waves of heat
Along the glass
(Philip Henry Savage)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Light Poems, Spring Poems, Literature Poems, Poets Poems, Forgiveness Poems, English PoemsBased on Keywords: undecided, cornel, bloss, low-set, forest-snakes