To Whom the House of Montagu

To whom the house of Montagu
Was neighbour, and that orchard near
Wherein all pleasant fruit-trees grew
Whose tops were silvered by the clear
Light of the blessed, sworn-by moon,
(Or all-but-sworn-by-save that She,
Knowing the moon’s inconstancy,
Dreaded that Love might change as soon…
Which changed never; or did change
Into something rich and strange);
To whom in infancy the sight
Of Sancho Panza and his Knight,
In noble, sad and awkward state
Approaching through the picket-gate,
Was warmer with the flesh of life
Than visits from the vicar’s wife;
For whom from earliest days the lips
Of Her who launched the thousand ships
Curved in entrancing speech, and Troy
Was hurt by no historic boy,
But one more close and less a fool
Than boys who yanked your curls at school
(Far less a fool than he who lay
With willing Venus on a bed
Of anise, parsley, dill and rue,
A bank whereon the wild thyme grew,
And longed but to be gone from thence,—
Whom vainly Venus did implore
To do her that sweet violence
All boys and girls with any sense
Would die to do; but where she lay away
Left her, and rose and rushed
To stalk the tusky, small-eyed boar
He might have stalked another day),
And naked long Leander swam
The Thames, the Avon and the Cam,
And wet and chattering, white and cold
Appeared upon the pure threshold
Of Hero, whom the sight did move
To fear, to pity, and to love;
For such a child the peopled time,
When any man in any wood
Was shaggy like a goat, and stood
On hooves, and used his lusty strength
To blow through straws of different length
Bound all together; or could ride
A horse he never need bestride—
For such a child, that distant time
Was close as apple-trees to climb,
And apples crashed among the trees
Half Baldwin, half Hesperides.