Classic Poem

Out of the dusk stepped down
Young Beauty on the stair;
What need of April in the town
When Dolly took the air?

Lilac the color then,
So all in lilac she;
Her kerchief hid from maids and men
What was too white to see.

Good Stuart folk her kin,
And bred in Essex vales;
One looked her happy eyes within,
And heard the nightingales.

When Dolly took the air,
Each lad that happened near,
Forgetting all save she was fair,
Turned English cavalier.

It was the end of Lent,
The crocus lit the square;
With wavering green the bough was bent
When Dolly took the air.

Long since that weather sped,
Yet yonder on the wall
Her portrait holds a faded shred,
Some scrap of it in thrall.

The New World claims the skies,
Although the Old prevails;
We look into her happy eyes
And hear the nightingales.

Staid lilac is her gown,
And yellow gleams her hair;
The ghost of April is in town,
And Dolly takes the air!