Poems (Van Rensselaer)/Mary Roses: Como
MAY ROSES: COMO
The snow still lingers on the rugged crest
Where Alpine outposts envy Italy,
Yet up and down our terraced slopes we see,
Bordering the pathways, buds of pearly breast
And crimson-bosomed open blossoms pressed,
With jasmine's slender arm and starry eye,
And vines of denser leaf, so thick, so nigh
To the low parapets, that, unconfessed,
The stones lie hid in their luxuriance;
And where the bloom-girt way most steeply slants,
The ruined tower that guards the lake's blue trance
Shows by its shape alone, so deep the wall
Is buried in wistaria's purple fall
And countless clustered roses pink and small.
Where Alpine outposts envy Italy,
Yet up and down our terraced slopes we see,
Bordering the pathways, buds of pearly breast
And crimson-bosomed open blossoms pressed,
With jasmine's slender arm and starry eye,
And vines of denser leaf, so thick, so nigh
To the low parapets, that, unconfessed,
The stones lie hid in their luxuriance;
And where the bloom-girt way most steeply slants,
The ruined tower that guards the lake's blue trance
Shows by its shape alone, so deep the wall
Is buried in wistaria's purple fall
And countless clustered roses pink and small.