Days

Days

Original Text
May-day and Other Pieces (London: G. Routledge, 1867) PS 1624 .M3 Robarts Library
1Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
2Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
3And marching single in an endless file,
4Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
5To each they offer gifts after his will,
6Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
7I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
8Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
9Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
10Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
11Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

Notes

1] Daughters: the reading as emended in Selected Poems (1876) Back to Line
2] dervishes: Muslim friars who took vows of poverty and were known for their ceremonial whirling dances. Back to Line
4] diadems: crowns. fagots: bunches of sticks or branches (for burning). Back to Line
7] pleached garden: "Formed by the pleaching or intertwisting of boughs and twigs; fenced, bordered, or overarched with pleached boughs, as a garden-alley or arbour" (OED "pleached" 2). Back to Line
11] fillet: hair ribbon. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1857
Publication Notes
Atlantic Monthly
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2002
Rhyme
unrhyming