Poetry
The Awakening
Do you like daisies and lambs with long tails ?
Meadows and April and gold buttercup ?
Send for the South Wind—his knock never fails—
Tell him to waken Persephone up, Tell him to say to her dimples and curls, That slug-a-bed habits don't suit little girls.
Nonsense, he can't have forgotten the road, Hasn't he called her, oh often, before ?
Well then, old Pluto's black marble abode, Well then, the keyhole (best choose the back door) t Now let him tip-toe a corridor's gloom, Turn to the left and he's facing her room.
Here, if again through a keyhole he'll sweep, Little Persephone sweetly he'll scan, Lying, like snow and wild-roses, asleep, Now he must whisper, as only he can, " Daisies," and, presently (this never fails
If " Daisies " don't waken her), " Lambs with long tails.'0,
Then let him hasten, I'd not have him there When neat little knuckles are rubbing blue eyes And she sits up in bed to push back her bright hair And blink at the clock in a pretty surprise ; (Yes, it won't take him two of her cuckoo clock's ticks To be off through both keyholes and back across Styx).
But we'll know that she's waking, for over the way The thrush on the apple-tree says so at once ; And didn't the bells of the snow-drops to-day Fair tingle and jingle, and does not each dunce That hears that link-tinkle, that thin one, two, three, Know that little Persephone rings for her tea ?
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