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II.
A cup of chamomile, spritz of lemon & squeeze of honey
Poem: Edith Sitwell's "Spring"
Spring
When spring begins, the maids in flocks
Walk in soft fields, and their sheepskin locks
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Fall shadowless, soft as music, round
Their jonquil eyelids, and reach the ground.
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Where the small fruit-buds begin to harden
Into sweet tunes in the palace garden,
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They peck at the fruit-buds' hairy herds
With their lips like the gentle bills of birds.
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But King Midas heard the swan-bosomed sky
Say 'All is surface, and so must die.'
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And he said: 'It is spring; I will have a feast
To woo eternity; for my least
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Palace is like a berg of ice;
And the spring winds, for birds of paradise,
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With the leaping goat-footed waterfalls-cold,
Shall be served for me on a dish of gold
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By a maiden fair as an almond-tree,
With hair like the waterfalls' goat-locks; she
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Has lips like that jangling harsh pink rain,
The flower-bells that spirt on trees again.'
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In Midas' garden the simple flowers
Laugh, and the tulips are bright as the showers,
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For spring is here; the auriculas,
And the Emily-coloured primulas
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Bob in their pinafores on the grass
As they watch the gardener's daughter pass.
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Then King Midas said, 'At last I feel
Eternity conquered beneath my heel
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Like the flittering snake of paradise-
And you are my Eve!'- but the maiden flies,
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Like the leaping goat-footed waterfalls
Singing their cold, forlorn madrigals.