And the hyacinth, purple and white, and blue, And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, And starry river-buds glimmer'd by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance, With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, K Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells, And flowrets, which drooping as day droop'd too, And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear, Wrapp'd and fill'd by their mutual atmosphere. But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, It desires what it has not, the beautiful! The light winds, which from unstaining wings The plumed insects swift and free, The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie The quivering vapours of dim noontide, Each and all like ministering angels were And when evening descended from Heaven above, And the earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drown'd In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness; (Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, Were mix'd with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) The Sensitive Plant was the earliest PART II. THERE was a Power in this sweet place, Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, A Lady, the wonder of her kind, Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion, Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, Tended the garden from morn to even: And the meteors of that sublunar heaven, Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, Laugh'd round her footsteps up from the earth! She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face As if some bright spirit for her sweet sake Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, Her step seem'd to pity the grass it prest; And wherever her airy footstep trod, I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet |