..
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee.
And thou away the very birds are mute,
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near,
(Sonnet 97.)
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell....
Yet seem'd it winter still.... (Sonnet 98.)
Or compare again the cypresses in Theocritus sole witnesses of secret
love; or Walther's
One little birdie who never will tell,
with
These blue-veined violets whereon we lean
Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.
(_Venus and Adonis._)
Comparisons of ladies' lips to roses, and hands to lilies, are common
with the old poets. How much more modern is:
The forward violet thus did I chide;
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells
If not from my love's breath?...
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stolen thy hair;
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair....
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee.
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