Michael Villiers, Idealist :: :: University of Virginia Library

'Twas a primrose of spring,
Abloom on a bank where the winter-time's loss
Had scarcely been known for the veiling of moss;
And the birds with new gladness, new life, were astir,
And the sweet air came full of their music to her,
Till she, too, fain, would sing;
And the song she outpoured on the rhythmical air
Was a perfume so tender, a beauty so fair,
The birds, in their turn,
Fain would learn
The secret of scent and the secret of hue
Which the spring-blossom knew.

Then a poet came by,
And he sang of the spring-time, this poet true-voiced,
Till it seemed how the soul of the spring-time rejoiced
To hear him, who carolled so clear and so sweet;
The primrose gave out all her scent at his feet,
And the birds' melody

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Chimed in with the poet's; and poet and birds
Sang on sweetest notes in the sweetest accords,
And the sky's happy blue
Fairer grew;
And the young leaves brake soft through their sheltering sheath,
At the wonderful breath.

And the poet sang on;
But no more of the spring and the glory that broods
At the heart of the colours that come to the woods
With the stirrings of sap; or the joy at the breast
Of the mate-birds that sing; and the life in the nest,
And the love-rapture won:
He sang of the summer, he sang of the rose,
The passionate colour, the passionate glows:
Oh, the rose! oh, the rose!
How she knows
The terrible raptures, the depth and the height,
And the sun in his might!

And the little spring flower,
That was born in the time of the singing of birds,
Gave ear to the poet, and hearkened his words,

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Till the noontime drank up all her bliss of the morn,
For her soul it was mad with desire and with scorn;—
With desire for the power
Of the sun and his splendour; desire for the sight
Of the queen of the summer, the rose in her might;—
With scorn for her lot
Which knew not
The glory, the ardour, the sheen, and the heat,
So dreadful, so sweet!

For, oh! to behold
These glories; to feed on the light of the sun;
To drink in the life of the beautiful one;
To be the great rose that can bear to be blest
With the strength of his kiss on the depth of her breast,
And unfold and unfold
All sweetness for him, her beloved, for him,
In the sheen of whose face all her being doth swim
As in seas of delight,
Warm and bright,
Till in death all the scent of the joy she has met
Doth cling to her yet!

So the primrose was fain
For the blisses the poet had sung while she heard;
For the joyaunce that breathed through his beautiful word;

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For the heights and the depths that she never might know,
Whose birth was too near to the last of the snow:
And the fret and the pain,
They withered her delicate beauty and slew,
And she died ere the time of her dying was due:
And the rose of July,
By-and-by,
Lived and died in the glory and joy of the sun,
By the primrose unwon.

O Love, sun of suns!
Didst thou shine in thy zenithal glory on high,
Down on us, even us, should we live, should we die?
Are we as the primrose of spring? would the sheer
White splendour of thee, coming near and more near,
Just slay us at once?
Dare we bid thee approach in thy light and thy heat,
Till, responsive, we breathe out all fragrancy meet,
All life, and be thine,
O Divine?
Then quicken, or slay us, whichever it be,
So we look upon thee!