Friend, in my mountain-side demesne, My plain-beholding, rosy, green And linnet-haunted garden-ground, Let still the esculents abound. Let first the onion flourish there, Rose among roots, the maiden-fair, Wine-scented and poetic soul Of the capacious salad-bowl. Let thyme the mountaineer (to dress The tinier birds) and wading cress, The lover of the shallow brook, From all my plots and borders look. Nor crisp and ruddy radish, nor Pease-cods for the child's pinafore Be lacking; nor of salad clan The last and least that ever ran About great nature's garden-beds. Nor thence be missed the speary heads Of artichoke; nor thence the bean That gathered innocent and green Outsavours the belauded pea. These tend, I prithee; and for me, Thy most long-suffering master, bring In April, when the linnets sing And the days lengthen more and more, At sundown to the garden door. And I, being provided thus, Shall, with superb asparagus, A book, a taper, and a cup Of country wine, divinely sup. LA SOLITUDE, HYERES. VIII TO MINNIE (WITH A HAND-GLASS) A picture-frame for you to fill, A paltry setting for your face, A thing that has no worth until You lend it something of your grace, I send (unhappy I that sing Laid by a while upon the shelf) Because I would not send a thing Less charming than you are yourself. And happier than I, alas! (Dumb thing, I envy its delight) 'Twill wish you well, the looking-glass, And look you in the face to-night. 1869. IX TO K. DE M. A lover of the moorland bare And honest country winds you were; The silver-skimming rain you took; And love the floodings of the brook, Dew, frost and mountains, fire and seas, Tumultuary silences, Winds that in darkness fifed a tune, And the high-riding, virgin moon. And as the berry, pale and sharp, Springs on some ditch's counterscarp In our ungenial, native north-- You put your frosted wildings forth, And on the heath, afar from man, A strong and bitter virgin ran. The berry ripened keeps the rude And racy flavour of the wood. And you that loved the empty plain All redolent of wind and rain, Around you still the curlew sings-- The freshness of the weather clings-- The maiden jewels of the rain Sit in your dabbled locks again. X TO N. V. DE G. S.