When The Locusts Are In Bloom

When the locusts are in bloom Every bud - a riven tomb Yields a spirit form, emerging pure as snow, Dancing lightly on the breeze Like the foam on fairy seas, Swinging like enchanted censers to and fro. And the moonbeams, white and chaste, Through the branches interlaced, How they seem to drip into each ivory cup, Where anon, the summer heats Mingle all those honeyed sweets That the bee, with nectar drunken, loves to sup. Wondrous pendants set with gems Clinging to the swaying stems How each chalice overflows into the stream Of the scented hours that glide Down a timeless, golden tide To the islands where the lotus eaters dream. So we idly float along On the bluebird’s lilting song To a region where the blossoms never die. For through all the cloying hours In the thralldom of the flowers Fancy roams in far off cloudlands of the sky.