DEED and event of prouder stature Dare not always overshade The first fresh buddings of our nature; Their hidden colour does not fade. We well may quit our laboured action At some sweet call to early loves, And find the jewel of self-contraction Like saints in rocks and springs and groves. Win back the world when true Aurora Dawned a goddess, not an hour! Think, have you caught the smile of Flora Since your own life was a young flower? And Love, even Love, has dropped her lilies On the hot highroad; once she knew How columbines and daffadillies Created her own sun and dew. Return; how stands that man enchanted Who, after seas and mountains crossed, Finds his old threshold, so long scanted, With not a rose or robin lost! The wise, from passion now retreating To the hamlets of the mind, In every glance have claimed the greeting Of spirits infinitely kind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AUTUMN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DOMEDAY BOOK: JOHN CAMPBELL AND CARL EATON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS LENTEN GREETING; TO A LADY by GEORGE SANTAYANA THE QUESTION ANSWER'D by WILLIAM BLAKE CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND by ROBERT BROWNING THE NEW COLOSSUS by EMMA LAZARUS ODE FOR THE AMERICAN DEAD IN ASIA by THOMAS MCGRATH SONNET: 16. TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, MAY 1652 by JOHN MILTON |