I bear a basket lined with grass; <br />I am so light, I am so fair, <br />That men must wonder as I pass <br />And at the basket that I bear, <br />Where in a newly-drawn green litter <br />Sweet flowers I carry,—sweets for bitter. <br /> <br />Lilies I shew you, lilies none, <br />None in Caesar’s gardens blow,— <br />And a quince in hand,—not one <br />Is set upon your boughs below; <br />Not set, because their buds not spring; <br />Spring not, ’cause world is wintering. <br /> <br />But these were found in the East and South <br />Where Winter is the clime forgot.— <br />The dewdrop on the larkspur’s mouth <br />O should it then be quench`d not? <br />In starry water-meads they drew <br />These drops: which be they? stars or dew? <br /> <br />Had she a quince in hand? Yet gaze: <br />Rather it is the sizing moon. <br />Lo, linkèd heavens with milky ways! <br />That was her larkspur row.—So soon? <br />Sphered so fast, sweet soul?—We see <br />Nor fruit, nor flowers, nor Dorothy.<br /><br />Gerard Manley Hopkins<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-a-picture-of-st-dorothea/
