Sweet Peas

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight:

With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,

And taper fingers catching at all things,

To bind them all about with tiny rings.

Linger awhile upon some bending planks

That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks,

And watch intently Nature's gentle doings,

They will be found softer than ringdove's cooings.

How silent comes the water round that bend!

Not the minutest whisper does it send

To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass

Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass.