Caroling Dusk/Life-long, Poor Browning
LIFE-LONG, POOR BROWNING . . .
Life-long, poor Browning never knew Virginia,Or he’d not grieved in Florence for April salliesBack to English gardens after Euclid’s linear:Clipt yews, Pomander Walks, and pleachéd alleys;
Primroses, prim indeed, in quite ordered hedges,Waterways, soberly, sedately enchanneled,No thin riotous blade even among the sedges,All the wild country-side tamely impaneled . . .
Dead, now, dear Browning, lives on in heaven,—(Heaven’s Virginia when the year’s at its Spring)He’s haunting the byways of wine-aired leavenAnd throating the notes of the wildings on wing;
Here canopied reaches of dogwood and hazel,Beech tree and redbud fine-laced in vines,Fleet clapping rills by lush fern and basil,Drain blue hills to lowlands scented with pines . . .
Think you he meets in this tender green sweetnessShade that was Elizabeth . . . immortal completeness!