The Fawn

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21990, 14 January 1937, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Fawn

Andrew Marvell, who lived from 1621 to 1878, wrote this poem. With sweetest milk and sugar first I it at my own fingers nursed; And aa it grew, so every day It wax’d more white and sweet than they— It had so sweet a breath! and oft I blushed to see its foot more soft And white—shall I say—than my hand? Nay, any lady’s in the land! It is a wondrous thing how fleet Twas on those little silver feet: With what a pretty skipping grace It oft -would challenge me the race:— • . And when’t had left me far away ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay: For it was nimbler much than' hinds, And trod as if on the four winds. I have a garden of my own, : But so with roses overgrown And lilies, that you would it guess To be a little wilderness: And all the springtime of the year It lovfcd to be there. Among the beds of lilies I Have sought,it oft, where it should lie; Yet could not, till itself would rise, Find it, although before mine eyes:— , For in ,the flaxen lilies’ shade , It like a bank of lilies laid. t ’ Upon the roses it would feed. Until its lips e’en, seem’d to bleed; And then to me ’twould boldly trip * And print those roses on my lip. But all its chief delight was still On roses thus ■ itself to fill, And its pure virgin limbs to fold In whitest sheets of lilies cold:—" Had it lived long it would have been _■ Lilies without—roses within.