Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE YELLOW JESSAMINE, by MARY SINTON LEITCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE YELLOW JESSAMINE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Lover of freedom, yours no prim retreat
Last Line: Out to the sea from dune to shining dune.
Subject(s): Carolina Jessamine; Yellow Jessamine; Evening Trumpet Flower


Lover of freedom, yours no prim retreat,
No garden hedged with box,
Whose paths are trim and neat,
Where proud, cold lilies and the formal phlox
Are welcome, and the stately hollyhocks,
While buttercups are banished from the close
Esteemed unfit companions for the rose; --
Ah, not for you those strait, confining walls
While in some tangle of a shadowy hollow
A vireo sings alluring madrigals;
Not while a yellow-throated warbler calls,
Bidding you -- "Follow! Follow!"

All the wild woods are yours, unfettered sprite,
Most mischievous of flowers. On brier and weed,
On bush and tree your Midas touch is laid.
To trick dull mortal eyes is your delight,
And with the sorcery of an alchemist
You disconcert the learned botanist
Changing the pink of laurel into gold.
Your secrets are too gay and sweet for musty books to hold.
When you mount nimbly out of cool lush shade
Of ivy, moss and fern
Up your invisible ladder to the light,
A sullen cedar or a lowering pine
Bursts into blossoms that confound our sight.
Or is it not through mischief but desire
Of heaven you rise to burn
Your incense to the God of oak and brier?
Is it in praise of Him your yellow candles shine?

When delicate-fingered breezes lightly shake
Your slender bells, what echoes they awake
Within my heart! Although I may not hear
Save with the spirit sense that spirit air,
Yet often when in search of solitude
I steal at night into the April wood,
Your chimes peal out more tender and more clear
Than mortal music upon mortal ear; --
A melody that, mystically golden,
Is like the sounding of some eerie, olden
Far elfin music from a land where dreaming
Alone is real, until this tragic seeming
That we call living fades and only spring
Remains for loving and for worshipping.
And spring suffices while those echoes ring
Out to the sea from dune to shining dune.





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