The Sensitive Plant
Whether the sensitive Plant, or that
Which within its boughs like a Spirit sat,
Ere its outward form had known decay,
Now felt this change, I cannot say.
Whether that Lady's gentle mind,
No longer with the form combined
Which scattered love, as stars do light,
Found sadness, where it left delight,
I cannot guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,
It is a modest creed,and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.
That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away;
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty and delight,
There is no death nor change; their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
--Percy Bysshe Shelley
Echoes
Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave
O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.
--Emma Lazarus
Poem 722
Sweet Mountains--Ye tell Me no lie--
Never deny Me--Never fly--
Those same unvarying Eyes
Turn on Me--when I fail--or feign,
Or take the Royal names in vain--
Their far--slow--Violet Gaze--
My Strong Madonnas--Cherish still--
The Wayward Nun--beneath the Hill--
Whose service--is to You--
Her latest Worship--When the Day
Fades from the Firmament away--
To life Her Brows on You--
--Emily Dickinson
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