Classic Poem

Pretty bonne of black Angers,
Sweeping daily in my room!
Do I from you breathe the airs
Of the yellow-flowering broom?
Plant that the crusaders set
In the helmets of Anjou
And were called Plantagenet
From the broom that busies you?

Fleurs de lis have made me tire,
Stale the French camelias bloom,
But my homesick thoughts inspire
Tender memories of your broom:
How the housemaids, o'er the sea,
Ran my boyhood round the room
And the broomstick fell on me,
When I fought them for the broom.

Could I be a boy again,
Would I have that struggle o'er? —
While I see you, pretty wren,
Hopping on my sunlit floor
With your high cap's snowy lace,
On your cheeks a rosy bloom,
While your instepped slippers chase
Waltzes round the flashing broom?

Now I see how Geoffrey's son
Was the Queen of France's groom!
Round his whisking youth she spun
Like the spirit of your broom;
Swept his mind up like the floor,
In it one cool vision set,
Till there were but Eleanore
And the bold Plantagenet.

Your forefathers came to harms
By Plantagenetic arts
Rifling for concealed arms
All too near Sicilian hearts,
In my heart your hand is deep
And my blood runs like a flume, —
At your masthead you do sweep
Up its river with your broom.

Would you give me but my due
If I grew a moment gay?
As the red Fulk of Anjou
France's Northmen drove away?
Or like Anjou's Margaret
In the Roses' wars of doom,
In your widowed helmet set
All the terrors of the broom?


Rene's knightly orators
Gave not sweeter tunings vent
In the tilts of troubadours
Than your household implement;
I can see the bright skinned slaves
Dusting in my fever room,
Like the cool tree shadows' waves,
When your white arms move the broom.

You are of King Robert's race
And his daughter's romance owe —
Fiammetta's bending grace
To a lone Boccaccio;
Lean your broom by me in trust,
I can tell you tales as fair;
You have swept my mind of dust
With Griselda's light and air.

One sweet kiss that shall Angers
Ever on my spirit bloom!
On my heath of barren cares
Plant the blossoms of the broom!
Hyssop with your lips my sins!
For the lists my courage whet!
And among your Angevins
Crown one more Plantagenet!