 | Western windows and other poems |  |
166
THE WHITE LILY.
I dream'd and saw a lily in my dreamOf fever'd wakefulness at twilight hour:
Issuing from moonlight grew that blesséd flower
Over my pillow, and the tender gleam
Of its white gentleness, like a soothing stream,
Alighted on me, and I ask'd: “What dower
Of purity is thine, that 'gainst the power
Of all impurity a charm doth seem?”
Transfigured dreadlessly the lily grew
An angel's stature, passing so away.
Then I awoke from fever which had been,
But in that dewy presence could not stay,
And over me you lean'd with holier dew.
Out of your heart had grown the flower within.
| Western windows and other poems | |