PENETRALIA

I am a part of all you see

In Nature; part of all you feel:

I am the impact of the bee

Upon the blossom; in the tree

I am the sap,— that shall reveal

The leaf, the bloom,— that flows and flutes

Up from the darkness through its roots.

I am the vermeil of the rose,

The perfume breathing in its veins;

The gold within the mist that glows

Along the west and overflows

With light the heaven; the dew that rains

Its freshness down and strings with spheres

Of wet the webs and oaten ears.

I am the egg that folds the bird;

The song that beaks and breaks its shell;

The laughter and the wandering word

The water says; and, dimly heard,

The music of the blossom's bell

When soft winds swing it; and the sound

Of grass slow-creeping o'er the ground.

I am the warmth, the honey-scent

That throats with spice each lily-bud

That opens, white with wonderment,

Beneath the moon; or, downward bent,

Sleeps with a moth beneath its hood:

I am the dream that haunts it too,

That crystallizes into dew.

I am the seed within the pod;

The worm within its closed cocoon:

The wings within the circling clod,

The germ, that gropes through soil and sod

To beauty, radiant in the noon:

I am all these, behold! and more —

I am the love at the world-heart's core.