Like a Sharp Axe of Doom, Wreathed with Blush Roses

 What Is My Lady Like?
by Frances Anne Kemble

What is my lady like? thou fain would'st know--
A rosy chaplet of fresh apple bloom,
Bound with blue ribbon, lying on the snow;
What is my lady like? the violet gloom
Of evening, with deep orange light below,
She's like the noonday smell of a pine wood,
She's like the sounding of a stormy flood,
She's like the mountain-top high in the skies,
To which the day its earliest light doth lend;
She's like a pleasant path without an end;
Like a strange secret and a sweet surprise;
Like a sharp axe of doom, wreathed with blush roses,
A casket full of gems whose key one loses;
Like a hard saying, wonderful and wise.