 | Love-Sonnets |  |
61
LIII.
[As a flower springs up out of dark and cold]
As a flower springs up out of dark and cold,Drawn by the gracious beauty of the light,
A bud that knows not all its own delight,
Till opening to one blaze of red and gold
Its deep-involvèd splendours, fold by fold,
It yields the perfume of its being one night,
Touches with conscious joy its nature's height,
Then withers back into the crumbling mould:
So love from the human spirit's lonely lair,
Nourished in moving darkness and damp gloom;
And peeps forth shyly to the golden air,—
A mere bud, but a blossom in its womb,
That knows itself a moment of brief bloom,
Then withers back into the soul's despair.
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