Queen Berengaria's Courtesy, and Other Poems By the Lady E. Stuart Wortley. In Three Vols |
 | I, II, III. |
 |
SWEET FLOWERS. |
|
 | Queen Berengaria's Courtesy, and Other Poems |  |
SWEET FLOWERS.
Sweet flowers! ye fair and ever new delights,That shed a smile o'er this dark world of blights,
And clouds and frowns, how brightly laugh ye forth,
In all your loveliest pride and richest worth.
302
Enchantment now—each heat-dejected head
Is lifted up in beauty fresh and bright.
These stars of day, like those that burn at night,
Now twinkle with the radiance of the shower,
That sets them round with jewels—every bower
Hath many a coloured constellation now,
And doth rekindle with a blushful glow;
Each leaf is diamond-dropt—and seems to be
A shining part of some bright galaxy—
The eye half wearied by the startling glare,
Turns to the sky to look for shadows there!—
And surely 'tis more sobered more subdued,
Than this now sparkling Earth and many-hued,
Which seems of every different brightness blent,
E'en to change places with the Firmament!
To wear its glories, and display its sheen,
And smile a radiant and etherial scene!
To win its splendours and its pride assume,
And emulate the starry-clustered dome.
303
So closely dazzling on the ravished sight!
No marvel it should lovelier still appear,
In all its loveliness beheld so near;
Until the eye half wearied by the glare,
Turns to the sky to look for shadows there!—
Turns to the glorious, the resplendent sky,
To look for shadows 'mid its brilliancy!
And almost findeth there for season brief,
The quiet of repose and soft relief—
For Earth's thick-jewelled front too brightly glows,
For any dream of quiet or repose.
And Heaven by contrast sober-suited seems,
Though there—though thence the flooding sunshine streams!
Its quivering stars are hid in shroud of light,
Beneath they seem redoubled to our sight!
| Queen Berengaria's Courtesy, and Other Poems | |