POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820. THE SENSITIVE-PLANT. PART I. A SENSITIVE-PLANT in a garden grew, And the Spring arose on the garden fair, And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast 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 snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, It was felt like an odour within the sense; And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, 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 all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 1 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 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ; The plumed insects swift and free, Like golden boats on a sunny sea, The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie |