My Rustic Rhymes

When I’d left the sleepless city

For these restful, rural climes

I penned these lines, pristine and pretty

Baptized them My Rustic Rhymes

 

They were writ in woodland’s wonder

By a sleepy, sunlit stream

Was where that bees their nectar plunder

Near where nymphs and naiads dream

 

I will warn you while you ponder

This was no idyllic phase!

Was mademoiselle who made me wander

Cursed me with my country craze

 

She was maid of misty morning

Goddess of the sacred grove

The daughter of Aurora dawning

So sublime she made me rove

 

I penned for her my love-sick poesies

For this mistress, verse I bled

Was there among the blood-red roses

On forbidden fruit I fed

 

When I‘d left the sleepless city

Where my wife and children slept

These poems purged my heart of pity

For the tears that they had wept