Classic Poem

WOOD NYMPHS , that do hereabouts
Dwell, and hold your pleasant routes,
When beneath her cloak so white,
Holding close the black-eyed Night,
Twilight, sweetly voluble,
Acquaints herself with shadows dull;
While above your rustic camp,
Hesperus, his pallid lamp
For the coming darkness trims,
From the gnarled bark of limbs
Rough and crabbed — slide to view!
I have work for you to do.

To this neighborhood of shade
Came I, the most woful maid
That did ever comfort glean
From the songs of birds, I ween;
Or from rills through hollow meads,
Washing over beds of reeds,
When, to vex with more annoy,
Found I here this sleeping boy.
I must learn some harmless art,
That will bind to mine his heart.
Never creature of the air
Saw I in a dream so fair.
Wood nymphs, lend your charmed aid —
Underneath the checkered shade
Of each tangled bough that stirs
To the wind, in shape of burs,
Rough and prickly, or sharp thorn —
Whence the tame ewe, newly shorn,
Stained with crimson, hurries oft,
Bleating toward the distant croft —
Dew of potency is found
That would leave my forehead crowned
With the very chrisms of joy —
The sweet kisses of this boy.
These quaint uses you must know —
Poets wise have writ it so.

When the charm so deftly planned,
Shall be wrought, I have in hand,
Work your nimble crew to please,
Mixed alone of sweetnesses.
This it is to bring to me
Fairest of all flowers that be —
Oxlips red, and columbines,
Ivies, with blue flowering twines,
Flags that grow by shallow springs,
Purple, prankt with yellow rings;
Slim ferns, bound in golden sheaves;
Mandrakes, with the notched leaves;

Pink and crowbind, nor o'erpass
The white daisies in the grass.
Of the daintiest that you pull,
I will tie a garland full,
And upon this oaken bough
Dropping coolest shadows now,
Hang it, 'gainst his face to swing,
Till he wakes from slumbering;
Evermore to live and love
In this dim consenting grove.

Shaggy beasts with hungry eyes —
Ugly, spotted, dragonflies —
Limber snakes drawn up to rings,
And the thousand hateful things
That are bred in forests drear,
Never shall disturb us here;
For my love and I will see
Only the sweet company
Of the nymphs that round me glide
With the shades of eventide.

Crow of cock, nor belfry chime,
Shall we need to count the time —
Tuneful footfalls in the flowers
Ringing out and in the hours.