Poets, no matter what your fame,
I bid you one and all make way!
For I can put your best to shame
With poems of the common day.
Who cares for sonnet, ballad, lay,
That on the grass can lie at ease
And to the limit tuck away
The poems growing on my trees?
King Solomon, when he would tame
His heart--fordone in Love's affray--
For apples called, and ate the same,
But did not bid his harpers play.
And he of men was wisest. Yea,
He showed it by such deeds as these!
A bard himself, he well could weigh
The poems growing on my trees.
The Snow, with rounded cheeks aflame,
On which the dewy kisses stay;
The Spy, that like a blushing dame
Hides in the leaves her colours gay;
The Russet, like a sun-burned fay
Ravished from the Hesperides--
Too fair they seem for lips of clay,
The poems growing on my trees.