A. Mary F. Robinson-Darmesteter (1857-1944). A Handful of Honeysuckle (1878). III. Paradise Fancies, I-IV. Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

A Handful of Honeysuckle (1878)
III. Paradise Fancies, I–IV

By A. Mary F. Robinson-Darmesteter (1857–1944)


I. LAST night I met mine own true love
Waking in Paradise,
A halo shone above his hair,
A glory in his eyes.

We sat and sang in alleys green	5
And heard the angels play,
Believe me, this was true last night
Though it is false to-day.

II. Through Paradise garden
A minstrel strays,	10
An old golden viol
For ever he plays.

Birds fly to his head,
Beasts lie at his feet,
For none of God’s angels	15
Make music so sweet.

And here, far from Zion
And lonely and mute,
I listen and long
For my heart is the lute.	20

III. Sing, oh the flowers of Paradise
Rose, lily and girasole!
In all the fields of Paradise
Every flower is a soul.

A climbing bindweed you are there	25
With petals lily fine,
Around my rose-bush fragrant-fair
Your tendrils twist and twine.

Too close those slender tendrils cling,
Their sweet embrace is Death.	30
But o’er my dead red roses swing,
Your lilies wreath on wreath.

IV. On the topmost branch of the Tree of Life
There hung a ripe red apple,
The angels singing underneath	35
All praised its crimson dapple.

They plucked it once to play at ball,
But ’mid the shouts and laughter
The apple fell o’er Heaven’s edge,
Sad angels looking after.	40

E’en while at ease to see it rest
Beside a peaceful chapel,
An old priest flung it farther still,
“Bah, what a battered apple!”