THE SENSITIVE PLANT. PART FIRST. Á SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, And the Spring arose on the garden fair, But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, Like a doe in the noon-tide with love's sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant. The snow-drop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 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 clear dew on the tender sky; And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, The sweetest flower for scent that blows; Grew in that garden in perfect prime. And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom, Broad water lilies lay tremulously, And starry river-buds glimmered by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells And flowrets which drooping as day drooped too And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes Can first lull, and at last must awaken it,) 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 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 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 beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, tho' they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness; (Only over head the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And snatches of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) The Sensitive Plant was the earliest Up-gathered into the bosom of rest; |