And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom, With golden and green light, slanting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue, Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, [dance And around them the soft stream did glide and With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees, Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells, 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 Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere. But the Sensitive-Plant, which could give small fruit Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, Received more than all, it loved more than ever, Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver; For the Sensitive-Plant has no bright flower: It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, The light winds, which from unsustaining wings The beams which dart from many a star 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 drowned 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, [Plant.) Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive The Sensitive-Plant was the earliest PART II. THERE was a Power in this sweet place, 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 : She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise: As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest. You might hear, by the heaving of her breast, That the coming and the going of the wind Brought pleasure there and left passion behind. And wherever her airy footstep trod, I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet She sprinkled bright water from the stream She lifted their heads with her tender hands, And sustained them with rods and osier bands; If the flowers had been her own infants, she Could never have nursed them more tenderly. And all killing insects and gnawing worms, |