A Garden Piece
Among the flowers of summer-time she stood,
And underneath the films and blossoms shone
Her face, like some pomegranate strangely grown
To ripe magnificence in solitude;
The wanton winds, deft whisperers, had strewed
Her shoulders with her shining hair outblown,
And dyed her robe with many a changing tone
Of silvery green, and all the hues that brood
Among the flowers;
She raised her arm up for her dove to know
That he might perch him on her lovely head;
Then I, unseen, and rising on tip-toe,
Bowed over the rose-barrier, and lo,
Touched not her arm, but kissed her lips instead
Among the flowers!
Edmund Gosse.