POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820. THE SENSITIVE-PLANT. PART I A SENSITIVE-PLANT in a garden grew, And the Spring arose on the garden fair, But none ever trembled and panted with bliss The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tail, And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale That the light of its tremulous bells is seen Through their pavilions of tender green; And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare; And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky; And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tube rose, The sweetest flower for scent that blows; 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 |