Poem by James Russell Lowell

Fancies about a Rosebud, Pressed in an Old Copy of Spenser

  Who prest you here? The Past can tell,
    When summer skies were bright above,
  And some full heart did leap and swell
    Beneath the white new moon of love.

  Some Poet, haply, when the world
    Showed like a calm sea, grand and blue,
  Ere its cold, inky waves had curled
    O'er the numb heart once warm and true;

  When, with his soul brimful of morn,
    He looked beyond the vale of Time,
  Nor saw therein the dullard scorn
    That made his heavenliness a crime;

  When, musing o'er the Poets olden,
    His soul did like a sun upstart
  To shoot its arrows, clear and golden,
    Through slavery's cold and darksome heart.

  Alas! too soon the veil is lifted
    That hangs between the soul and pain,
  Too soon the morning-red hath drifted
    Into dull cloud, or fallen in rain!

  Or were you prest by one who nurst
    Bleak memories of love gone by,
  Whose heart, like a star fallen, burst
    In dark and erring vacancy?

  To him you still were fresh and green
    As when you grew upon the stalk,
  And many a breezy summer scene
    Came back--and many a moonlit walk;

  And there would be a hum of bees,
    A smell of childhood in the air,
  And old, fresh feelings cooled the breeze
    That, like loved fingers, stirred his hair!

  Then would you suddenly be blasted
    By the keen wind of one dark thought,
  One nameless woe, that had outlasted
    The sudden blow whereby 'twas brought.

  Or were you prest here by two lovers
    Who seemed to read these verses rare,
  But found between the antique covers
    What Spenser could not prison there:

  Songs which his glorious soul had heard,
    But his dull pen could never write,
  Which flew, like some gold-wingèd bird,
    Through the blue heaven out of sight?

  My heart is with them as they sit,
    I see the rosebud in her breast,
  I see her small hand taking it
    From out its odorous, snowy nest;

  I hear him swear that he will keep it,
    In memory of that blessed day,
  To smile on it or over-weep it
    When she and spring are far away.

  Ah me! I needs must droop my head,
    And brush away a happy tear,
  For they are gone, and, dry and dead,
    The rosebud lies before me here.

  Yet is it in no stranger's hand,
    For I will guard it tenderly,
  And it shall be a magic wand
    To bring mine own true love to me.

  My heart runs o'er with sweet surmises,
  The while my fancy weaves her rhyme,
  Kind hopes and musical surprises
  Throng round me from the olden time.

  I do not care to know who prest you:
  Enough for me to feel and know
  That some heart's love and longing blest you,
  Knitting to-day with long-ago.

1. My Friend, Adown Life's Valley, Hand in Hand
2. Verse Cannot Say How Beautiful Thou Art
3. Sayest Thou, Most Beautiful, That Thou Wilt Wear
4. “No More But So?”
5. The Lover

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