CHORUS OF THE FLOWERS 55 



In his talking rooms 



How the feasting fumes, 

 Till his gold cups overflow to the mouths of men ! 



The butterflies come aping 



Those fine thieves of ours, 



And flutter round our rifled tops, like tickled flowers 

 with flowers. 



See those tops, how beauteous ! 



What fair service duteous 

 Round some idol waits, as on their lord the Nine ? 



Elfin court 'twould seem, 



And taught, perchance, that dream 

 Which the old Greek mountain dreamt upon nights 

 divine. 



To expound such wonder 



Human speech avails not, 



Yet there dies no poorest weed, that such a glory 

 exhales not. 



Think of all these treasures, 



Matchless works and pleasures, 

 Every one a marvel, more than thought can say ; 



Then think in what bright showers 



We thicken fields and bowers, 



And with what heaps of sweetness half stifle wanton 

 May; 



Think of the mossy forests 



By the bee-birds haunted, 



And all those Amazonian plains, lone lying as en- 

 chanted. 



