The Flower.

I. The flower in its own scent breathes till it dies As if the scent its very birth-breath were (As love is life's) which, while it occupies Like a mesmeric light the living air, Feeds every portion of the tender hue In which it manifests so subtly fair The faery form, which as in a dream grew Out of the dark earth with ethereal power Quickening its limbs, as those of a babe who Draws from its mother's life a vital dower Of warmth and beauty, thrilling breast and brain Till it too comes to birth — a perfect flower With its own aura, like a subtle strain Which must vibrate to every joy and pain. II. The seeing eye and hearing ear are fed With nature's nurture, and the mind imbues Earth and all things within it, even the dead, With its own sap that with thought's mystic hues Bourgeons in every waking hour, and e'en When sleep does all the inner life transfuse With its own radiance, and the unseen Becomes a part of us too, as we were Back in some other sphere where we had been Before the new thought breathed in the old air, And the new body budded into birth, Making us all that we are now who bear The signs in us of all the woe and mirth That came and has gone on with man on earth. III. Far back in the unstoried past, whose rune No sage has ciphered and no bard has sung, In the beginning of the sun and moon When e'en the oldest hill was very young — Ah! then perchance the seed that was us first Took root in th' mystic soil whence we have (Unclear Under the very hand of God, and burst Into the secret being it has had, All through the enchanted aeons strangely nursed From death to life between the good and bad; E'en as it were a spirit-germ that grew By some mysterious process, and was clad E'en like the flowers with varying form and hue, Till it ends in what all may end in too!