THE HEDGE-ROSE OPENS

How passionately it opens after rain,

And O, how like a prayer

To those great shining skies! Do they disdain

A bride so small and fair?

See the imploring petals, how they part

And utterly lay bare

The perishing treasures of that piteous heart

In wild surrender there.

What? Would'st thou, too, drink up the Eternal bliss,

Ecstatically dare,

O, little bride of God, to invoke His kiss?—

But O, how like a prayer!