Our love is not a fading earthly flower:
Its wingèd seed dropped down from Paradise,
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower,
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise.
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green:
Our summer hearts make summer's fulness where
No leaf or bud or blossom may be seen:
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,
Love,--whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I
Into the infinite freedom openeth,
And makes the body's dark and narrow grate
The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.
LOVE BY JAMES RUSSEL LOWELL (ERASED TEXT)
love is a flower:
dropped from Paradise,
And, by sun and shower,
Doth rise.
Nor lack lusty green:
Our hearts make where
bud or blossom be seen:
For life doth lie,
Love, is beauty's death,
mystic key of Thou and I
Into freedom openeth,
And makes narrow
The Heaven's palace-gate.
LOVE (FINAL VERSION)
Love is a flower,
Dropped from paradise,
And by sun and shower,
Doth rise,
Nor lack lusty green
Our hearts make where
Bud or blossom be seen:
For life doth lie,
Love is beauty’s death,
Mystic key of thou and I
Into freedom openeth,
And makes narrow
The Heaven’s palace-gate.
I’ NOT SO BLIND (SONNET)
Dare not tell me;
That I’m so blind,
That I can’t see
What’s on your mind,
If fish be in sea
I’ll be around,
For you to prove
What I daily claim:
That all this love,
Makes me so dumb,
Much as I try
I think I’ll die,
End be not near.
