The Bather

The painted tulips, like a glorious host With pennons nodding in the warm south wind, Crowd by the garden walks; in the fresh grass The dandelions are strewn like louis-d'ors; Adoring lilacs blossom by the porch; While through the orchard in its clouds of bloom The whistling orioles dart like flakes of fire, And down beyond the roadside calls a quail. In the on-coming haze of summer now That floods the earth with languor and pale fire, The mellowing woods are like a frail Corot— Where dark stems merge with misty red and green Reflected in the gray-green of the lake, Tranced on the brink a slim young bather stands.