At Woodstock

LYNX in the lilacs, dark as danger
Out of Asia; what is stranger

Than tropical cat who proudly stalks
Along these formal garden walks?

Hemmed by violet, hedged by rose,
Softly the shining alien goes

Baffled by this cool flowered plot
Where mango and cinnamon trees are not.

Yet strange as panther in garden is,
There is a thing more strange than this.

Foreign as tiger must ever be
Scenting hawthorn; wondrously

Like to a leopard in green lands,
Removed from all he understands,

Is love, bright beast, amazed to find
Himself in the austere, ordered mind.