Two Twilights

<SPAN name="chap010"></SPAN> <h3> BLUE ROSES OF ACADEMUS </h3> <p class="poem"> So late and long the shadows lie<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Under the quadrangle wall:</SPAN><br/> From such a narrow strip of sky<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">So scant an hour the sunbeams fall,</SPAN><br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">They hardly come to touch at all</SPAN><br/> This cool, sequestered corner where,<br/> Beside the chapel belfry tall,<br/> I cultivate my small parterre.<br/></p> <p class="poem"> Poor, sickly blooms of Academe,<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Recluses of the college close,</SPAN><br/> Whose nun-like pallor would beseem<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The violet better than the rose:</SPAN><br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">There's not a bud among you blows</SPAN><br/> With scent or hue to lure the bee:<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Only the thorn that on you grows&mdash;</SPAN><br/> Only the thorn grows hardily.<br/></p> <p class="poem"> Pale cloisterers, have you lost so soon<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">The way to blush? Do you forget</SPAN><br/> How once, beneath the enamored moon,<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">You climbed against the parapet,</SPAN><br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">To touch the breast of Juliet</SPAN><br/> Warm with a kiss, wet with a tear,<br/> <SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">In gardens of the Capulet,</SPAN><br/> Far south, my flowers, not here&mdash;not here?<br/></p> <br/><br/><br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />